Scientists track Cayman sea turtles via satellite

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

An endangered Caribbean Loggerhead sea turtle has been tagged with a state-of-the-art Satellite Transmitter in Cayman to allow scientists, school children, and members of the public to track her migration.

Researchers from the Cayman Islands Department of Environment, in collaboration with the UK’s special Marine Turtle Research Group, attached a satellite transmitter to Ambassador when the turtle nested in Cayman.

After Ambassador left her nesting beach, she travelled over 500 kilometres across open ocean, diving to depths of over 360 feet.

Recent updates from her transmitter show that she has now returned to nest in the Cayman Islands for a second time, before she begins a long-distance migration to a feeding area overseas.

Ambassador is the first of five turtles that will be tracked this summer from the Cayman Islands.

The new state-of-the-art satellite transmitter for Ambassador was sponsored by the Ritz Carlton, Grand Cayman, as an outreach and education project.

Through community sponsorship, scientists, school children and thousands of others worldwide are now able to follow Ambassador’s international migration on the project’s website at: http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/.

“The turtle tracking site provides pioneering access to research on Caribbean turtles, “ said Dr. Michael Coyne, Founder of Seaturtle.org. “It has created a great deal of interest and we hope to generate even more, especially among students.”

When Ambassador comes to the surface to breathe, the transmitter on the back of her shell sends information on her position and diving behavior to satellites orbiting the earth.

The satellites detecting Ambassador’s location are over 700 km high, and travel around the globe in just over 1.5 hours.

Information from the satellites is rapidly relayed to researchers, allowing them follow her migration across the open ocean, and to students, fostering an awareness of the interconnection of oceanic ecosystems.

Transmitters are now attached with a special kind of strong epoxy glue, which is lightweight, waterproof, and harmless to turtles. The weight of a transmitter represents less than 0.5% of the turtle’s weight, and the transmitters detach naturally over time.

Despite historical populations estimated in the millions, sea turtles nesting in the Cayman Islands are now endangered, with less than ten loggerhead turtles and ten green turtles nesting per year.

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