Sea Turtles Reported from Near and Far

The sea turtle sighting season is underway and Wellfleet Bay’s seaturtlesightings.org website has been getting reports from near and far. In fact, very far!

Locally, the first report came on June 8th with information about a live leatherback off Sakonnet Point in Rhode Island, just south of Buzzards Bay.

This is typically how leatherback turtles appear from the point of view of a vessel. (Photo by Nicole LaRoche). Happily, this turtle was reported to look healthy and swimming with its favorite food–jellies.

Eight days later we received word of another leatherback that had stranded at Horseneck Beach in Westport, Massachusetts. But this report was grim. The turtle, a sub-adult male, had been killed by a vessel-strike, an all too common fate for sea turtles, especially in our busy waters.

Thanks to the global reach of the Internet, our Massachusetts-managed website also hears from people thousands of miles away.

This spring a kayaker off northeastern South Africa reported watching a large loggerhead with a satellite tag swimming about a mile offshore on May 19. Through our contacts with international sea turtle colleagues, we were able to connect the observer with researchers at uShaka Sea World, in Durban, South Africa. In an email, they said it could be their old friend, “Herbie”, a female turtle they had cared for for 15 years:

 “Two years ago, Herbie started nesting on the beach in our Turtle exhibit and we made the difficult decision to release her. For the first few months, the (satellite) tag worked properly and we were able to monitor her movements. However around April 12, the tag stopped transmitting and we have been a little concerned about her. Her last position was just North of Sheffield Beach, KwaZulu-Natal. When we were able to track her, we found that she spent a lot of time on the reefs cruising up and down the coast. It is very possible that the turtle spotted is Herbie. As you can imagine 15 years is a long time to care for an animal and we would really like to confirm that it is her and that she is still in good health. It’s incredible that your network was able to get that message to us.”

A second interesting inquiry came from a summer resident of Martha’s Vineyard wintering in eastern Nicaragua where sea turtles are hunted and sold for meat. This individual told us he pays the hunters and then releases the turtles. He wanted to know whom to contact should he buy a turtle with tag on it. We were able to refer this report to a colleague in Florida who has done green turtle research in Nicaragua.

It’s gratifying to see that people everywhere want to protect sea turtles and it’s easy to help. If you’re a boater or you know one, please encourage them to watch out for turtles and not to use autopilot. And let them know about seaturtlesightings.org for reporting any turtles they see this summer. The information is used to benefit turtles that feed in our waters and helps sea turtle research.

This loggerhead was spotted and reported by Amy Warren, who works as a whale watch naturalist out of Newburyport. We love to receive these kinds of pictures! (Photo by Amy Warren).

This post was contributed by Wellfleet Bay sea turtle research associate Karen Dourdeville, who oversees the seaturtlesightings.org website and hotline (1-888-SEA-TURT).

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