This summer, 11 female leatherbacks that nested on Isla Culebra were fitted by CRESLI's Sam Sadove and others with satellite telemetry devices providing a significant amount of data including: depth of dive, duration of dives, time at depth, deepest dive etc. Periodically, maps of the position and track of these turtles will be posted here.
Summer 2001 satellite telemetry summary maps:
The work is a special collaborative project involving Dr. Russ Andrews of University of British Columbia, Dr. Molley Lutcavage of Edgerton Labs at the New England Aquarium, Dr. Anders Rhodin of the Chelonian Foundation and Massachusetts General Hospital, Sam Sadove of CRESLI and Hector C. Horta Abraham, of the Departmento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales, Puerto Rico (DNR) . Funding for this project comes from the US National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), University of British Columbia, Evan Frankel Foundation, Bacon/Moore Foundation, Edgerton Labs, Trade-Winds Environmental.
The group has been experimenting with new attachment methods for leatherback sea turtles that will hopefully lead to a single point attachment enabling attachment of tags that can be placed on entangled leatherbacks by observers on fisheries vessels. The old method involves capturing the turtle and placing a harness on the turtle that the tag is attached to. There are some shell erosion problems with the harness but its larger design issue is it cannot quickly be applied by one person.
The group is using two types of satellite tags. One type is the typical TDR that is about the size of a cigarette pack. The others are called 'pop-ups'. These are cigar-shaped with a bulb and an antenna on them. These remain on for a scheduled period of time and then "pop-up" off the turtle and send the data. These new ones compute the position of the turtle based upon refractive indices of light through the water. The method of attachment involves using a special surgical anchor that is used in rotator cuff surgery in humans. The group plans to modify these further for next year but what is exciting is that they have found something that clearly works and will be able to be relatively easily attached to turtles. The "pop-ups" are only about the size of a fingernail so they are minimally invasive. The last pop-up is scheduled to report in on December 17.
