Leatherback turtle transmitter recovered after 10-month journey at sea

Against all odds, a collaboration effort between grassroots conservation groups in Canada and Colombia was able to recover rare data on the behaviour of an endangered leatherback sea turtle when a satellite-linked transmitter was recovered after a 7,000 kilometre, 10-month journey at sea.

The Canadian Sea Turtle Network (CSTN) now has back in its possession the satellite-linked transmitter that its scientists and fishermen deployed almost a year ago on a leatherback turtle off the coast of Nova Scotia. “When the tag is transmitting from on the leatherback, it gives us a summary snapshot of the turtle’s behaviour, like the proportion of time the turtle spends at different depth ranges,” says Dr. Mike James, CSTN’s director of science. “The full picture, including what the turtle does every few seconds of every day, is stored in the memory of the tag. You can’t access it unless you get the tag back.”

James says leatherbacks migrate incredible distances, in this case it was from Canada to Colombia. The leatherbacks typically shed their tags before they nest so retrieving the tags – and the important data they contain– has proved nearly impossible he says.

As the turtle approached the Gulf of Uraba, near the Panama-Colombia border, James knew there was a chance, though. He watched helplessly on the Internet as the turtle nested once on the southern section of Playona Beach, Colombia. He knew that the turtle would nest again, but when and where where the questions.

And could he somehow rally a team of people near that remote beach in Colombia to help? In Canada the turtle network relies on the help of commercial fishermen in their research.

Thus began weeks of work trying to make contact with a group to patrol the beach. With the help of sea turtle researchers from projects in Spain, the United States, and throughout the Caribbean, James reached biologists in Medellin, Colombia, who put him in contact with Project GILA, a tiny beach program run by villagers near Playona Beach. They agreed to patrol the 15-kilometre beach in search of the Canadian turtle, even though as James says, “It was one shot in a thousand that the turtle would be found.”

But in the pouring rain on a moonless night, GILA project head, Feliciano Chaverra, found the Canadian turtle. “My flashlight had broken,” said Chaverra through a translator. “I caught a glint of the transmitter through the rain, and then couldn’t see it again it was so dark. So I walked along the edge of the ocean, making transects until I literally bumped into the turtle nesting.”

According to Chaverra, the turtle was in good condition, her carapace (top shell) measuring at 149 cm in length and 111 cm in width. She had travelled more than 7,000 kilometres since leaving Canadian waters. The turtle had been one of the animals the CSTN and its partners, Conservation International and National Geographic, had tracked during the Great Turtle Race. She raced under the name “Nueva Esperanza,” which means, “New Hope” in Spanish. “That name turned out to be really appropriate,” says James. “International collaboration is necessary to conserving leatherback turtles. This is a species that crosses through the jurisdictions of many countries. It takes a lot of creativity to work across political boundaries. It isn’t simple. But this success is a testament to what we can do for leatherbacks and for other migratory species if we try hard to work together.”

To learn more about the work of the CSTN, visit www.seaturtle.ca. To see Nueva Esperanza’s track in the Great Turtle Race, visit:

www.greatturtlerace.org

QUICK GLANCE

Canadian Sea Turtle Network

The Canadian Sea Turtle Network is a non-profit organization of scientists, commercial fishermen and coastal community members working to conserve endangered sea turtles in Canada, the gathering place of Atlantic leatherbacks. Visit: www.seaturtle.ca

Leatherbacks

The leatherback turtle has existed since the time of the dinosaurs and is now endangered in Canada. It is the world’s largest turtle, growing up to two meters in length and routinely weighing 500 kilograms. It is found off the coast of Atlantic Canada each summer and fall. It makes migrations of thousands of kilometers from Caribbean nesting beaches to Canadian waters to feed on our abundance of jellyfish. Learn more about leatherback turtles in Canada at

www.seaturtle.ca