We are reaching that time of year when the leatherbacks have begun to move north in search of foraging grounds and the nest numbers have dropped off pretty dramatically. We’ve seen just 4 turtles in the last five days. We will likely continue to survey through this weekend and then call that the end of Read more about just about done[…]
Last night at around 1:00am, we got the familiar and consistent beep-beep-beep-beepbeep-beep of Shehyn’s VHF tag. Her satellite transmitter led us to St. Lucie County at the start of the evening and from there we were able to determine her location offshore by listening to the beeps from her VHF tag. Every few minutes we Read more about Found her![…]
Shehyn stayed just off Hutchinson Island last night as we followed her around for hours. Last night wasn’t her night so we’re back out tonight. A perfect overpass by the weather satellite NOAA18 just gave our team a good location showing that Shehyn was located just south of the Ft. Pierce Inlet. We rarely see Read more about So close[…]
Shehyn is almost off our beach! She is 17 km away from her last nest. Tonight could be the night that she returns to nest again. It is now day 8 since we put her transmitter on. While that’s a little on the short end for an internesting interval, she has done it before. We’ll Read more about Tonight?[…]
Shehyn is transmitting beautifully and heading our way! Since we attached her transmitter one week ago, she has travelled 236 km during her journey to the Melbourne Beach area and back toward the nesting beach. We tracked three turtles last year using the same methods and each of those turtles traveled about 500 km each. Read more about The chase is on![…]
Aside from tracking Shehyn, we’re still busy on the beach each night. Last night we found 5 more leatherbacks. That seems to be about average along our regular 12 mile stretch. Two of the girls we encountered last night were on their 7th nests each and we’ve seen them both for every nest. Milan, one Read more about Busy girls[…]
Shehyn, our tracked leatherback, has made the turn south and is headed back our way. Leatherbacks that nest along our survey beaches typically follow the same pattern. We know this from years of looking at satellite data. They use the Florida Current to swim north. Once they reach the Cape Canaveral area, the either keep Read more about She turned![…]
Two days ago, FLI researchers attached a transmitter to a nesting leatherback to monitor her movements during the internesting period. Leatherbacks nest up to 9 times in a season and typically nest every 9-11 days. Not much is known about their behavior in this short window so our team is tracking them during this time Read more about Where in the world is shehyn?[…]
Last night, Niki, one of our permitted volunteers and a staff member at Ecological Associates was conducting some monitoring on Hutchinson Island and ran into an old friend. Actually, it was a turtle that she had tagged on that very same beach 11 years ago while working for Ecological Associates conducting monitoring for a nourishment Read more about An old friend[…]
Sorry for the lack of updates but we’ve certainly been busy. In the first 3 weeks of May we’ve had 74 leatherback encounters! That’s despite the fact that it’s been a fairly slow nesting season. We’re excited to be able to capture even more in the coming weeks. Thanks to funds from the Sea Turtle Read more about The fleet expands![…]