Fisheries bycatch is a critical threat to sea turtle populations worldwide, particularly because turtles are vulnerable to multiple gear types. The Canary Current is an intensely fished region, yet there has been no demographic assessment integrating bycatch and population management information of the globally significant Cabo Verde loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) population. Using Boa Vista island (Eastern Cabo Verde) subpopulation data from capture-recapture and nest monitoring (2013–2019), we evaluated population viability and estimated regional bycatch rates (2016–2020) in longline, trawl, purse-seine, and artisanal fisheries. We further evaluated current nesting trends in the context of bycatch estimates, existing hatchery conservation measures, and environmental (net primary productivity) variability in turtle foraging grounds. We projected that current bycatch mortality rates would lead to the near extinction of the Boa Vista subpopulation. Bycatch reduction in longline fisheries and all fisheries combined would increase finite population growth rate by 1.76% and 1.95%, respectively. Hatchery conservation increased hatchling production and reduced extinction risk, but alone it could not achieve population growth. Short-term increases in nest counts (2013–2021), putatively driven by temporary increases in net primary productivity, may be masking ongoing long-term population declines. When fecundity was linked to net primary productivity, our hindcast models simultaneously predicted these opposing long-term and short-term trends. Consequently, our results showed conservation management must diversify from land-based management. The masking effect we found has broad-reaching implications for monitoring sea turtle populations worldwide, demonstrating the importance of directly estimating adult survival and that nest counts might inadequately reflect underlying population trends. Methods Here we present materials and scripts for all models presented or referred to in our publication: Hidden demographic impacts of fishing and environmental drivers of fecundity in a sea turtle population. For stochastic models, we present all simulated datasets. Demographic data were collected from João Barrosa loggerhead nesting beach, Boa Vista (16.014°N, 22.735°W), approved by the National Directory of the Environment of Cabo Verde and received ethical approval following strict international animal care guidelines (permit numbers: DGA: 21/2013-22/2015; DNA: 16/2016-51/2019). No third-party data has been reproduced here. Raw data on animal observations are not presented here, only data on turtle remigration intervals as a model script dependency. Raw bycatch data are not presented here, only summarized estimates of annual mortality of female loggerhead turtles from Boa Vista as a model script dependency. Publicly available net primary productivity data on the EU Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service have been summarized in a file that is used as a model script dependency. Annotations and READMEs describe preliminary analysis, processing for each dataset, and output simulation data.

Given differing trajectories of sea turtle populations worldwide, there is a need to assess and report long-term population trends and determine which conservation strategies are effective. In this study, we report on sea turtle nest monitoring in the Cayman Islands over a 22-year period. We found that green (Chelonia mydas) and loggerhead (Caretta caretta) nest numbers increased significantly across the three islands since monitoring began in 1998, but that hawksbill nest numbers remained low with a maximum of 13 nests recorded in a season. Comparing the first 5 years of nest numbers to the most recent 5 years, the greatest percentage increase in green turtle nests was in Grand Cayman from 82 to 1,005 nests (1,126%), whereas the greatest percentage increase for loggerhead turtle nests was in Little Cayman from 10 to 290 nests (3,800%). A captive breeding operation contributed to the increase in the Grand Cayman green turtle population, however, loggerhead turtles were never captive-bred, and these populations began to increase after a legal traditional turtle fishery became inactive in 2008. Although both species have shown significant signs of recovery, populations remain at a fragment of their historical level and are vulnerable to threats. Illegal harvesting occurs to this day, with multiple females taken from nesting beaches each year. For nests and hatchlings, threats include artificial lighting on nesting beaches, causing hatchlings to misorient away from the sea, and inundation of nests by seawater reducing hatch success. The impacts of lighting were found to increase over the monitoring period. Spatial data on nest distribution was used to identify critical nesting habitat for green and loggerhead turtles and is used by the Cayman Islands Department of Environment to facilitate remediation of threats related to beachside development and for targeted future management efforts.

Original provider: The State of the World's Sea Turtles Team

Dataset credits: The State of the World's Sea Turtles Team Oceanic Society IUCN Marine Turtle Specialist Group Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab, Duke University

Abstract: SWOT - the State of the World's Sea Turtles - is a partnership led by Marine Flagship Species Program at the Oceanic Society and the IUCN Marine Turtle Specialist Group (MTSG), and supported by the OBIS-SEAMAP project at the Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab (MGEL), Duke University. This online database and mapping application is built with sea turtle nesting and telemetry data contributed to SWOT since 2004 and also incorporates earlier efforts that produced the WIDECAST nesting database. Since 2012, the data collection and database management are conducted by the OBIS-SEAMAP team at the Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab, Duke University.

Currently, SWOT collects data from a network of more than 550 people and projects (SWOT team) for the only comprehensive, global database of sea turtle nesting sites and satellite telemetry data. The SWOT team has provided global nesting locations and satellite telemetry data of all seven marine turtle species: green, leatherback, loggerhead, hawksbill, flatback, olive ridley, and Kemp's ridley. These data have been highlighted here and in annual SWOT reports, available freely in print and online. Furthermore, SWOT supports recommendations for monitoring effort schemes (minimum data standards or MDS) that will allow for comparison of long-term nesting abundance and trend estimates for regional and global populations of sea turtle species. All data contributed to SWOT must include MDS level information to facilitate a standardized global monitoring system for sea turtles.

In addition to collating sea turtle nesting and telemetry data, SWOT provides other geospatial sea turtle data, including species regional management units, georeferenced sea turtle mtDNA and nDNA sampling sites, and a nesting habitat suitability layer. These files can be viewed and downloaded for analyses from the SWOT mapping application (http://seamap.env.duke.edu/swot) once the OBIS-SEAMAP Terms of Use are agreed upon.

Sea turtles are vulnerable to climate change impacts in both their terrestrial (nesting beach) and oceanic habitats. From 1982 to 2012, air and sea surface temperatures at major high use foraging and nesting regions (n = 5) of loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) nesting in Greece have steadily increased. Here, we update the established relationships between sea surface temperature and nesting data from Zakynthos (latitude: 37.7°N), a major nesting beach, while also expanding these analyses to include precipitation and air temperature and additional nesting data from two other key beaches in Greece: Kyparissia Bay (latitude: 37.3°N) and Rethymno, Crete (latitude: 35.4°N). We confirmed that nesting phenology at Zakynthos has continued to be impacted by breeding season temperature; however, temperature has no consistent relationship with nest numbers, which are declining on Zakynthos and Crete but increasing at Kyparissia. Then using statistically downscaled outputs of 14 climate models assessed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we projected future shifts in nesting for these populations. Based on the climate models, we projected that temperature at the key foraging and breeding sites (Adriatic Sea, Aegean Sea, Crete, Gulf of Gabès and Zakynthos/Kyparissia Bay; overall latitudinal range: 33.0°—45.8°N) for loggerhead turtles nesting in Greece will rise by 3–5°C by 2100. Our calculations indicate that the projected rise in air and ocean temperature at Zakynthos could cause the nesting season in this major rookery to shift to an earlier date by as much as 50–74 days by 2100. Although an earlier onset of the nesting season may provide minor relief for nest success as temperatures rise, the overall climatic changes to the various important habitats will most likely have an overall negative impact on this population.

Original provider: Aubrey Strydom

Dataset credits: Data provider Aubrey Strydom Originating data center Satellite Tracking and Analysis Tool (STAT) Project partner Aubrey Strydom.
Sandy Cape Lighthouse Volunteer Caretakers.
Lower Mary River Land and Catchment Care Group Inc.
Burnett Mary Regional Group for Natural Resource Management.
Queensland Parks & Wildlife, K'gari-Fraser Island.
Queensland Parks & Wildlife, Great Sandy Marine Park.
Queensland Turtle Conservation Research Program: Aquatic Threatened Species Unit, (Department of Environment & Science)
Sirtrack, NZ
Wildlife Computers, Redmond, WA

Abstract: See Project ID 1151 for tracking of courting greens from Sandy Cape: http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/?project_id=1151

The traditional owners of K'gari (Fraser Island), the Butchulla people, gained Native Title over much of K'gari in 2014, and we acknowledge their long heritage on and nurturing of this beautiful land, and wish them well with their new opportunities.
The idea of monitoring nesting turtles in the Sandy Cape rookery on K'gari-Fraser Island was initiated in the 1992-3 season by Rowan Foley, a Butchulla man, who was then employed as a Ranger by Queensland (National) Parks and Wildlife Service, (QNPWS, now QPWS) and as a result some nest and track-count monitoring was undertaken by long-time annual campers Karl & Sue Klein, and the Lighthouse Keepers, Dudley & Sue Fulton, & Aubrey Strydom & Lainie Rowe.

Rowan's report recommending that a turtle census be undertaken was accepted by QPWS and in the 1993-4 season Steve Price - QPWS 2IC Ranger at Waddy Point, with the support of his RIC Bart Klekar, came to the top end of K'gari-Fraser Island with the two Michaels - volunteers from the Mon Repos Turtle Rookery.
A number of Park Rangers and the Lighthouse Keepers were inducted into turtle species I.D., flipper tagging, and data sheet entry and so began an 18 year monitoring program, with a 17 night mid-season nesting census and flipper tagging of all turtles coming ashore during the census across the 44km of beach from Rooney Point to Ngkala Rocks.
In that first season the first nest relocations to near the Lighthouse gate by vehicle was trialed, using three doomed clutches laid below the king tide level.

This was successful and since then 5 nest relocation cages with a total capacity of 120 clutches have been developed at strategic locations along the rookery, and recently also at Orchid Beach, to enable protection of doomed loggerhead and green clutches, and to provide protection for a percentage of loggerhead clutches from vehicle and camping impacts, and dingo and goanna (monitor lizard) depredation.

In the first few years in the 1990's between 50 to 100 greens, but only 5 to 7 loggerheads were nesting annually, and drowned adult loggerhead turtles were being found washed up on the beach.

Nesting numbers increased to twelve to fifteen loggerheads a year from 1997 when a seasonal 3 to 5 km wide trawl exclusion zone was established along the NW beach between Rooney Point and Sandy Cape, and then climbed to near 50 nesting each year after the introduction of TEDs, (Turtle Exclusion Devices) in the Queensland trawl fishery nets in 2001.
Currently annually about 40 to 50 loggerheads nest along the 44 kilometers of the Rooney Point to Sandy Cape to Ngkala Rocks rookery, and between 50 and 100 loggerhead nests are protected by relocation each season, by the Sandy Cape Lighthouse Volunteer Caretakers, in a program supported by QPWS.

Green nests are not generally relocated, as the Southern Barrier Reef green turtle population is still slowly increasing since turtle protection in Queensland began in the early 1950s, and these eggs support the Wongari (Dingo) population as part of their natural diet.

While sometimes up to 600 greens nest in a season, and as few as 3 the next season, most commonly between 50 and 100 green turtles come in to nest each year. This variability provides some protection to the greens clutches by sometimes alternatively flooding the predators' diet one season with a mass nesting and starving them the next.

A study of dingo impacts on the nests saw nest depredation vary between 15% in a season when there was a mass nesting of over 250 greens and 85% when there were only about 30 greens nesting.

A potential new threat to the rookery is the advance of feral foxes and pigs up K'gari-Fraser Island. They are in large numbers on the adjacent mainland and are good swimmers.
In recent years foxes have been sighted at Awinya Creek, only 30 to 40 kilometers from either end of the Sandy Cape rookery, and in December 2018 a feral pig was seen on the beach in the rookery only 5km south of Sandy Cape.
Monitoring of nests for any pig and fox impacts will guide management plans to provide further protection.

Over the years since 1993 over 500 male green turtles were tagged courting in the shallows or basking on the beach, and a correlation between their numbers and the size of the concurrent green nesting season was observed. Some were found to be carrying flipper tags from the Shoalwater Bay turtle rodeo program, and K'gari-Fraser Island tagged males were being found at Shoalwater Bay, and in the Whitsundays.

It was found that female green turtles tagged on the Island in the September/October courting season were being seen that season nesting further north at other rookeries in the Southern Great Barrier Reef, and at the Wongarra Coast and Wreck Rock mainland rookeries.

In 2014 two males were tagged while courting at Sandy Cape and one returned home to Shoalwater Bay Qld, and one to the outer Barrier Reef near Olympic Reef.

The green female April O'Moreton, who had been tagged as a juvenile in 1992 in Moreton Bay was found courting at Sandy Cape in 2015 and given a satellite tracker, and she moved on to nest at North West Island in the Capricorn Bunker group.

In the 2015-16 season the project also tracked 5 green males and in 2016-17 a further 6 green males, to expand the knowledge of where they come from to court at Fraser Island, what connectivity they have to other known courting areas, and to examine the areas in the Great Sandy Marine Park they use during their courting sojourn.

Three females were tracked in the 2016-17 season - one with a history of nesting at K'gari-Fraser Island, one known to forage in the Whitsundays, and one known to nest at Wreck Island in 1998 in the Capricorn Bunker group.

In November 2017, 3 nesting loggerhead females and 8 nesting green females, and in December 2018, 5 nesting loggerhead females were given trackers, to enable comparison of the female's inter-nesting habitat use with that of the males courting habitat, and help inform an assessment of the adequacy of the seasonal go-slow and no-trawl zones in the Great Sandy Marine Park.

Small populations of imperiled species are susceptible to the negative consequences of skewed sex ratios. In imperiled species with environmental sex determination such as sea turtles, examining sex ratios across a range of environments and population abundance levels can provide insight into factors that influence population resilience, which can then be the foci of management plans for these species. Breeding sex ratios (the ratio of actively breeding males to females during a reproductive season; BSRs) extrapolated from genetic parentage analyses are a common approach for enumerating sex ratios in sea turtles. Such analyses also allow for the characterization of multiple paternity within sea turtle clutches, which should reflect BSRs and breeding behaviors. We characterized the first BSR for a breeding assemblage of loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) belonging to the temperate, low-abundance Northern Gulf of Mexico Recovery Unit using genotypes of 16 microsatellite loci from nesting females and hatchlings. Unlike prior studies at both more-tropical and more-temperate, and higher-abundance, Recovery Units in this region, we found a balanced BSR of 1.3:1 males: female and a low incidence (~17%) of multiple paternity. This suggests that there are relatively few males breeding at this assemblage and within this Recovery Unit. Beaches in this region are expected to produce substantial numbers of male hatchlings based on sand temperature data. The relative dearth of mature males may then be due to hydrologic disturbances that disproportionately affect the fitness and survival of male hatchlings, or due to demographic stochasticity. More work is needed to study the factors that might influence male hatchling production and fitness in this region, particularly as climate change is predicted to lead to feminization in global sea turtle populations. Our work demonstrates the broad utility of characterizing BSRs and other sex ratios across a range of populations in imperiled, environmentally sensitive species.

Original provider: Queensland Turtle Conservation Project - Col Limpus & Aubrey Strydom

Dataset credits: Data provider Aubrey Strydom Originating data center Satellite Tracking and Analysis Tool (STAT) Project partner Aubrey Strydom.
Burnett Mary Regional Group for Natural Resource Management.
Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation
Butchulla Land & Sea Rangers
Butchulla Native Title Aboriginal Corporation
Lower Mary River Land and Catchment Care Group Inc.
Mary River Catchment Coordinating Committee.
Queensland Parks & Wildlife, Great Sandy Marine Park.
Queensland Parks & Wildlife, K'gari-Fraser Island.
Queensland Turtle Conservation Research Program: Aquatic Threatened Species Unit, (Department of Environment & Science)
Sandy Cape Lighthouse Volunteer Caretakers.
Sirtrack, New Zealand.
Wildlife Computers, Redmond, Washington. Project sponsor or sponsor description In February 2022 a prominent British Broadcaster's Natural History Unit donated over $4,000 towards flipper tagging equipment and hand held GPS units for the project.

In January 2022 Warner Bros TV Productions (London) donated over $4,000 towards diesel fuel & 2 x Cel-Fi mobile phone repeaters for the Lighthouse Cottages.

Lower Mary River Land and Catchment Care Group Inc and Burnett Mary Regional Group for Natural Resource Management provided the turtle catch trailer, sponsored two trackers and their Argos data for six months, and found grants for diesel fuel for the seasons 2014-2022.

The Sandy Cape Lighthouse Volunteer Caretakers came in their own 4x4 vehicles and spent uncounted kilometers and hours relocating loggerhead nests to the secure hatchery cages.

Aub Strydom funded 32 trackers (7 before we started with seaturtle.org and not shown on this page.) and the Argos data fees for 23 trackers.

Queensland Turtle Conservation Research Program: Aquatic Threatened Species Unit, (Department of Environment & Science) provided the Argos data fees for 7 trackers.

Sirtrack NZ sponsored one tracker and provided another free at the 4th Australian Sea Turtle Symposium Silent Auction which we were able to bid for at a good price. (used on 2 Cc females - neither shown on this tracking site.)

ARGOS CSL provided the data free for the Silent Auction tracker.

Wildlife Computers provided the data and a new Mk10 GPS Depth & Temperature tracker & a Mini Spot6 tracker for us to to Beta test. (On a Cc male and a Cm male - Neither shown on this tracking site)

Abstract: 63 turtles have been tracked from Sandy Cape.
44 are shown here, and a further 16 green males, 1 loggerhead male and 3 loggerhead females have been tracked but the data is not captured in seaturtle.org
Totals are:
31 green males
14 green females
1 loggerhead male
18 loggerhead females

Project Sponsors and Partners are acknowledged at the bottom of this web page.

The traditional owners of K'gari (Fraser Island), the Butchulla people, gained Native Title over much of K'gari in 2014, and we acknowledge their long heritage on and nurturing of this beautiful land.
The idea of monitoring nesting turtles in the Sandy Cape rookery on K'gari-Fraser Island was initiated in the 1992-3 season by Rowan Foley, a Butchulla man, who was then employed as a Ranger by Queensland (National) Parks and Wildlife Service, (QNPWS, now QPWS) and as a result some nest and track-count monitoring was undertaken by long-time annual campers Karl & Sue Klein, and the Lighthouse Keepers, Dudley & Sue Fulton, & Aubrey Strydom & Lainie Rowe.

Rowan's report recommending that a turtle census be undertaken was accepted by QPWS and in the 1993-4 season Steve Price - QPWS 2IC Ranger at Waddy Point, with the support of his RIC Bart Klekar, came to the top end of K'gari-Fraser Island with the two Michaels - volunteers from the Mon Repos Turtle Rookery.
A number of Park Rangers and the Lighthouse Keepers were inducted into turtle species I.D., flipper tagging, and data sheet entry and so began an 18 year monitoring program, with a 17 night mid-season nesting census and flipper tagging of all turtles coming ashore during the census across the 44km of beach from Rooney Point to Ngkala Rocks.
In that first season the first nest relocations to near the Lighthouse gate by vehicle was trialed, using three doomed clutches laid below the king tide level.

This was successful and since then 5 nest relocation cages with a total capacity of 120 clutches have been developed at strategic locations along the rookery, and recently also at Orchid Beach, to enable protection of doomed loggerhead and green clutches, and to provide protection for a percentage of loggerhead clutches from vehicle and camping impacts, and dingo and goanna (monitor lizard) depredation.

In the first few years in the mid 1990's between 50 to 100 greens, but only 5 to 7 loggerheads were nesting annually, and drowned adult loggerhead turtles were being found washed up on the beach.

Nesting numbers increased to twelve to fifteen loggerheads a year from 1997 when a seasonal 3 to 5 km wide trawl exclusion zone was established along the NW beach between Rooney Point and Sandy Cape, and then climbed to near 50 nesting each year after the introduction of TEDs, (Turtle Exclusion Devices) in the Queensland trawl fishery nets in 2001.
Currently annually about 50 loggerheads nest along the 44 kilometers of the Rooney Point to Sandy Cape to Ngkala Rocks rookery, and between 50 and 100 loggerhead nests are protected by relocation each season, by the Sandy Cape Lighthouse Volunteer Caretakers, in a program supported by QPWS.

Green nests are not generally relocated, as the Southern Barrier Reef green turtle population is still slowly increasing since turtle protection in Queensland began in the early 1950s, and these eggs support the Wongari (Dingo) population as part of their natural diet.

While occasionally over 600 greens have been found to nest in a season, and as few as 3 the next season, most commonly between 50 and 100 green turtles come in to nest each year. This variability provides some protection to the greens clutches by sometimes alternatively flooding the predators' diet one season with a mass nesting and starving them the next.

A study of dingo impacts on the nests saw nest depredation vary between 15% in a season when there was a mass nesting of over 250 greens and 85% when there were only about 30 greens nesting.

A potential new threat to the rookery is the advance of feral foxes and pigs up K'gari-Fraser Island. They are in large numbers on the adjacent mainland and are good swimmers.
In recent years foxes have been sighted at Awinya Creek, only 30 to 40 kilometers from either end of the Sandy Cape rookery, and in December 2018 a feral pig was seen on the beach in the rookery only 5km south of Sandy Cape.
Monitoring of nests for any pig and fox impacts will guide management plans to provide further protection.

Over the years since 1993 over 500 male green turtles were tagged courting in the shallows or basking on the beach, and a correlation between their numbers and the size of the concurrent green nesting season was observed. Some were found to be carrying flipper tags from the Shoalwater Bay turtle rodeo program, and K'gari-Fraser Island tagged males were being found at Shoalwater Bay, and in the Whitsundays.

It was found that female green turtles tagged on the Island in the September/October courting season were being seen that season nesting further north at other rookeries in the Southern Great Barrier Reef, and at the Wongarra Coast and Wreck Rock mainland rookeries.

In 2014 two males were tagged while courting at Sandy Cape and one returned home to Shoalwater Bay and one to the outer Barrier Reef near Olympic Reef.

The green female April O'Moreton, who had been tagged as a juvenile in 1992 in Moreton Bay was found courting at Sandy Cape in 2015 and given a satellite tracker, and she moved on to nest at North West Island in the Capricorn Bunker group.

In the 2015-16 season the project also tracked 5 green males and in 2016-17 a further 6 green males, to expand the knowledge of where they come from to court at Fraser Island, what connectivity they have to other known
courting areas, and to examine the areas in the Great Sandy Marine Park they use during their courting sojourn.
While many of these returned to nearby foraging home ranges, the most distant male home foraging range was of a turtle who swam to the Great Lakes near Pt Stephens, NSW.

Three green females were tracked in the 2016-17 season - one with a history of nesting at K'gari-Fraser Island, one known to forage in the Whitsundays, and one known to nest at Wreck Island in 1998 in the Capricorn Bunker group.

In November 2017, 3 nesting loggerhead females and 8 nesting green females, and in each of December 2018, and December 2022 a further 5 nesting loggerhead females were given trackers, to enable comparison of the female's inter-nesting habitat use with that of the males courting habitat, and help inform an assessment of the adequacy of the seasonal go-slow and no-trawl zones in the Great Sandy Marine Park.

3 courting green males were tracked 2021-2022, with one returning to a home foraging range in New Caledonia, and a further 3 tracked in 2022-23.

2 courting green females and 10 green males, and 3 more loggerhead females are being tracked in 2023-24. 6 of these males are tracked via the Iridum satellites and not captured here.

Original provider: Queensland Turtle Conservation Project - Col Limpus & Aubrey Strydom

Dataset credits: Data provider Aubrey Strydom Originating data center Satellite Tracking and Analysis Tool (STAT) Project partner Aubrey Strydom.Burnett Mary Regional Group for Natural Resource Management.Butchulla Aboriginal CorporationButchulla Land & Sea RangersButchulla Native Title Aboriginal CorporationLower Mary River Land and Catchment Care Group Inc.Mary River Catchment Coordinating Committee.Queensland Parks & Wildlife, Great Sandy Marine Park.Queensland Parks & Wildlife, K'gari-Fraser Island.Queensland Turtle Conservation Research Program: Aquatic Threatened Species Unit, (Department of Environment & Science)Sandy Cape Lighthouse Volunteer Caretakers.Sirtrack, New Zealand.Wildlife Computers, Redmond, Washington. Project sponsor or sponsor description In February 2022 a prominent British Broadcaster's Natural History Unit donated over $4,000 towards flipper tagging equipment and hand held GPS units for the project.In January 2022 Warner Bros TV Productions (London) donated over $4,000 towards diesel fuel & 2 x Cel-Fi mobile phone repeaters for the Lighthouse Cottages.Lower Mary River Land and Catchment Care Group Inc and Burnett Mary Regional Group for Natural Resource Management provided the turtle catch trailer, sponsored two trackers and their Argos data for six months, and found grants for diesel fuel for the seasons 2014-2022.The Sandy Cape Lighthouse Volunteer Caretakers came in their own 4x4 vehicles and spent uncounted kilometers and hours relocating loggerhead nests to the secure hatchery cages.Aub Strydom funded 32 trackers (7 before we started with seaturtle.org and not shown on this page.) and the Argos data fees for 23 trackers.Queensland Turtle Conservation Research Program: Aquatic Threatened Species Unit, (Department of Environment & Science) provided the Argos data fees for 7 trackers.Sirtrack NZ sponsored one tracker and provided another free at the 4th Australian Sea Turtle Symposium Silent Auction which we were able to bid for at a good price. (used on 2 Cc females - neither shown on this tracking site.)ARGOS CSL provided the data free for the Silent Auction tracker.Wildlife Computers provided the data and a new Mk10 GPS Depth & Temperature tracker & a Mini Spot6 tracker for us to to Beta test. (On a Cc male and a Cm male - Neither shown on this tracking site)

Abstract: 63 turtles have been tracked from Sandy Cape.44 are shown here, and a further 15 green males, 1 loggerhead male and 3 loggerhead females have been tracked but the data is not captured in seaturtle.orgTotals are:30 green males14 green females1 loggerhead male18 loggerhead femalesProject Sponsors and Partners are acknowledged at the bottom of this web page.The traditional owners of K'gari (Fraser Island), the Butchulla people, gained Native Title over much of K'gari in 2014, and we acknowledge their long heritage on and nurturing of this beautiful land.The idea of monitoring nesting turtles in the Sandy Cape rookery on K'gari-Fraser Island was initiated in the 1992-3 season by Rowan Foley, a Butchulla man, who was then employed as a Ranger by Queensland (National) Parks and Wildlife Service, (QNPWS, now QPWS) and as a result some nest and track-count monitoring was undertaken by long-time annual campers Karl & Sue Klein, and the Lighthouse Keepers, Dudley & Sue Fulton, & Aubrey Strydom & Lainie Rowe. Rowan's report recommending that a turtle census be undertaken was accepted by QPWS and in the 1993-4 season Steve Price - QPWS 2IC Ranger at Waddy Point, with the support of his RIC Bart Klekar, came to the top end of K'gari-Fraser Island with the two Michaels - volunteers from the Mon Repos Turtle Rookery.A number of Park Rangers and the Lighthouse Keepers were inducted into turtle species I.D., flipper tagging, and data sheet entry and so began an 18 year monitoring program, with a 17 night mid-season nesting census and flipper tagging of all turtles coming ashore during the census across the 44km of beach from Rooney Point to Ngkala Rocks.In that first season the first nest relocations to near the Lighthouse gate by vehicle was trialed, using three doomed clutches laid below the king tide level.This was successful and since then 5 nest relocation cages with a total capacity of 120 clutches have been developed at strategic locations along the rookery, and recently also at Orchid Beach, to enable protection of doomed loggerhead and green clutches, and to provide protection for a percentage of loggerhead clutches from vehicle and camping impacts, and dingo and goanna (monitor lizard) depredation.In the first few years in the mid 1990's between 50 to 100 greens, but only 5 to 7 loggerheads were nesting annually, and drowned adult loggerhead turtles were being found washed up on the beach. Nesting numbers increased to twelve to fifteen loggerheads a year from 1997 when a seasonal 3 to 5 km wide trawl exclusion zone was established along the NW beach between Rooney Point and Sandy Cape, and then climbed to near 50 nesting each year after the introduction of TEDs, (Turtle Exclusion Devices) in the Queensland trawl fishery nets in 2001.Currently annually about 50 loggerheads nest along the 44 kilometers of the Rooney Point to Sandy Cape to Ngkala Rocks rookery, and between 50 and 100 loggerhead nests are protected by relocation each season, by the Sandy Cape Lighthouse Volunteer Caretakers, in a program supported by QPWS.Green nests are not generally relocated, as the Southern Barrier Reef green turtle population is still slowly increasing since turtle protection in Queensland began in the early 1950s, and these eggs support the Wongari (Dingo) population as part of their natural diet.While occasionally over 600 greens have been found to nest in a season, and as few as 3 the next season, most commonly between 50 and 100 green turtles come in to nest each year. This variability provides some protection to the greens clutches by sometimes alternatively flooding the predators' diet one season with a mass nesting and starving them the next.A study of dingo impacts on the nests saw nest depredation vary between 15% in a season when there was a mass nesting of over 250 greens and 85% when there were only about 30 greens nesting. A potential new threat to the rookery is the advance of feral foxes and pigs up K'gari-Fraser Island. They are in large numbers on the adjacent mainland and are good swimmers.In recent years foxes have been sighted at Awinya Creek, only 30 to 40 kilometers from either end of the Sandy Cape rookery, and in December 2018 a feral pig was seen on the beach in the rookery only 5km south of Sandy Cape.Monitoring of nests for any pig and fox impacts will guide management plans to provide further protection.Over the years since 1993 over 500 male green turtles were tagged courting in the shallows or basking on the beach, and a correlation between their numbers and the size of the concurrent green nesting season was observed. Some were found to be carrying flipper tags from the Shoalwater Bay turtle rodeo program, and K'gari-Fraser Island tagged males were being found at Shoalwater Bay, and in the Whitsundays. It was found that female green turtles tagged on the Island in the September/October courting season were being seen that season nesting further north at other rookeries in the Southern Great Barrier Reef, and at the Wongarra Coast and Wreck Rock mainland rookeries. In 2014 two males were tagged while courting at Sandy Cape and one returned home to Shoalwater Bay and one to the outer Barrier Reef near Olympic Reef.The green female April O'Moreton, who had been tagged as a juvenile in 1992 in Moreton Bay was found courting at Sandy Cape in 2015 and given a satellite tracker, and she moved on to nest at North West Island in the Capricorn Bunker group. In the 2015-16 season the project also tracked 5 green males and in 2016-17 a further 6 green males, to expand the knowledge of where they come from to court at Fraser Island, what connectivity they have to other known courting areas, and to examine the areas in the Great Sandy Marine Park they use during their courting sojourn.While many of these returned to nearby foraging home ranges, the most distant male home foraging range was of a turtle who swam to the Great Lakes near Pt Stephens, NSW.Three green females were tracked in the 2016-17 season - one with a history of nesting at K'gari-Fraser Island, one known to forage in the Whitsundays, and one known to nest at Wreck Island in 1998 in the Capricorn Bunker group.In November 2017, 3 nesting loggerhead females and 8 nesting green females, and in each of December 2018, and December 2022 a further 5 nesting loggerhead females were given trackers, to enable comparison of the female's inter-nesting habitat use with that of the males courting habitat, and help inform an assessment of the adequacy of the seasonal go-slow and no-trawl zones in the Great Sandy Marine Park.3 courting green males were tracked 2021-2022, with one returning to a home foraging range in New Caledonia, and a further 3 tracked in 2022-23.2 courting green females and 10 green males, and 3 more loggerhead females are being tracked in 2023-24. 6 of these males are tracked via the Iridum satellites and not captured here.

Supplemental information: Visit STAT's project page for additional information.

This dataset is a summarized representation of the telemetry locations aggregated per species per 1-degree cell.

Original provider: Aubrey Strydom

Dataset credits: Data provider Aubrey Strydom Originating data center Satellite Tracking and Analysis Tool (STAT) Project partner Hervey Bay Turtle Volunteers, of the Lower Mary River Land and Catchment Care Group Inc. (LMRL&CCG Inc - Landcare).
Mary River Catchment Coordinating Committee (MRCCC - Landcare)
Fraser Coast Regional Council
Burnett Mary Regional Group for Natural Resource Management.
Queensland Parks & Wildlife, Great Sandy Marine Park.
Queensland Turtle Conservation Research Program: Aquatic Threatened Species Unit, (Department of Environment & Science).

Abstract: Before it was taken from them by British colonization of Queensland in the mid 1800's, the land and waters now part of Hervey Bay were owned and used for millennia by the Butchulla Aboriginal people.

One of their enterprises included the construction and manipulation of elaborate stone walled tidal fish traps, and the harvest from these included sea turtles.

On 13th December 2019 the Butchulla people received official Australian Federal Court recognition of their Native Title Claim over land including Hervey Bay, following recognition of nearby K'gari (Fraser Island) in 2014.

Urbanized Hervey Bay - today's busy city began as a string of small holiday villages, which merged into one long foreshore township after WW2.
Little was known to the new European population of its nesting loggerhead and green turtles.
By the 1980's it was a city, and nests were being dug by dogs and foxes, and lights from the streets and houses were confusing the emerging hatchlings, drawing them inland, and they were being found dead from exhaustion in the street gutters.
The Local Councils for the last 2 decades have had a turtle friendly management program to provide a darker beach: including foreshore tree planting, installing low intensity sodium vapor and amber street lights along the foreshore roads and parks, and a fox den location and elimination program. The turtles have benefited from better Council domestic animal management, which means that now very few dogs stray from their yards.

The turtle nest monitoring program has been run since 2002 by the Lower Mary River Land and Catchment Care Group (Landcare).
Under supervision of team leaders Lesley & Don Bradley, trained at the Queensland Parks & Wildlife Service's Mon Repos Turtle Conservation Centre, volunteers check the beach in the early morning, and collect data on attempted and successful nesting.
Successful nests are relocated further up the beach if necessary, marked, protected with aluminium mesh, and then monitored regularly for the duration of their incubation period, for depredation by foxes and un-managed dogs, loss to storm tides, and interference by community members.
After emergence the nests are dug up and shell counts are made to establish hatching success percentages.

NOTE: This map service contains a copy of the Section 7 Consultation Area database, slightly reorganized to support the Greater Atlantic Region Section 7 Mapper application. It was not developed with the intent of being viewed on its own. We strongly recommend viewing the linked application to see this map service in its intended context. The original geodatabase:https://noaa.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=b0421f7c43014cbd98067e3c7d04f939The application:https://noaa.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=1bc332edc5204e03b250ac11f9914a27This dataset is intended as guidance for Federal action agencies in consideration of Section 7 (S7) of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The areas depicted represent locations where the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office (GARFO) has identified species presence and areas of critical habitat for use by Federal action agencies during S7 consultation. S7 Consultation Areas delineate locations where listed species are potentially affected within a river/estuary/marine zone. The Consultation Areas specify which life stages and behaviors may be affected. Please note that due to data limitations, if a Federal action agency project (and associated action area) is outside of a major waterway (e.g., in a very small tributary, or shallow area near a marsh), S7 Consultation Areas may lack the spatial resolution to capture the action area. Therefore, activities outside a Consultation Area but within a certain proximity may still affect the species identified within the Consultation Area. GARFO encourages Federal action agencies to request technical assistance to verify presence/absence of listed species when making consultation determinations. If a user knows of more recent information that is not reflected in the S7 Consultation Area data, please notify us so that we can make appropriate updates (zachary.jylkka@noaa.gov). The NOAA Greater Atlantic Region includes: the states of ME, NH, VT, MA, CT, RI, NY, NJ, PA, DE, MD, DC, VA, WV, OH, MI, IN, IL, WI and MN; Atlantic waters of the US Exclusive Economic Zone from the NC/VA border to US/Canada Maritime Boundary; and US waters of the Great Lakes. Atlantic Large Whales: This data depicts a best estimate of the range of Atlantic large whales in waters of the Greater Atlantic Region as guidance for action agencies. Please note that the distribution of these species may not be exclusively limited to the areas included. Sea Turtles: Sea turtle species in the Greater Atlantic Region include loggerhead, Kemp's ridley, leatherback, and green sea turtles. Hawksbill sea turtles are rare in the Greater Atlantic Region and are not included. Sea turtles move north into these waters in the spring, arriving in more southern waters of the mid-Atlantic in mid-April/May and the Gulf of Maine in June. In the fall, this trend is reversed with most sea turtles leaving Greater Atlantic Region waters by the end of November. Outside of these times, sea turtle presence in these waters is considered unlikely. Atlantic Salmon: The Gulf of Maine distinct population segment (DPS) of Atlantic salmon are an anadromous species found within rivers of Maine, as well as coastal waters encompassed by the Gulf of Maine, Gulf of St. Lawrence, Grand Bank, and the Labrador Sea. NOAA Fisheries has ESA Section 7 jurisdiction over Atlantic salmon in marine and estuarine waters, while the Fish & Wildlife Service has jurisdiction in freshwater. Please note that the distribution of these species may not be exclusively limited to the areas included. Atlantic Sturgeon: There are four distinct population segments (DPS) of Atlantic sturgeon listed as endangered (New York Bight, Chesapeake Bay, Carolina, and South Atlantic) and one DPS listed as threatened (Gulf of Maine) under the ESA. The range for all five DPSs includes marine waters, coastal bays and estuaries, and coastal river systems from the Labrador Inlet in Labrador, Canada to Cape Canaveral, Florida. Shortnose Sturgeon: Shortnose sturgeon are endangered throughout their range, and occur in Atlantic Ocean waters and associated bays, estuaries, and coastal river systems from Minas Basin, Nova Scotia, Canada, to the St. Johns River, Florida. They spend the majority of their lives within coastal river systems, and only adults occur in marine waters, with some adults making coastal migrations between river systems.

Designation and geographic positions of the 28 surveyed sites in the ‘GLS’ rookery.

the mediterranean sperm whale population is listed as ‘endangered”. the hellenic trench is the core habitat of the eastern mediterranean sperm whale sub-population that numbers two to three hundred individuals. major shipping routes running on or very close to the 1000 m depth contour along the hellenic trench are causing an unsustainable number of ship-strikes with sperm whales reviewed in this paper. sperm whale sighting and density data were combined with specific information on the vessel traffic in the area (e.g., types of vessels, traffic patterns, speed and traffic density), in order to estimate the risk of a whale/ship interaction. routing options to significantly reduce ship strike risk by a small offshore shift in shipping routes were identified. the overall collision risk for sperm whales in the study area would be reduced by around 70%, while a maximum of 11 nautical miles would be added to major routes and only around 5 nautical miles for the majority of ships. no negative impacts were associated with re-routing by shipping away from sperm whale habitat and there would be additional shipping safety and environmental benefits. a significant contribution to the overall conservation status of the marine natura2000 sites in the area and very important population units of threatened species such as cuvier’s beaked whales, monk seals and loggerhead turtles would be achieved, by the reduction of shipping noise and reduced risk of any oil spills reaching the coasts, which are also important touristic destinations in greece.csv file contains the following headings : mmsi maritime mobile service identity shiptype type of vessel status navigationalstatus speed speed over ground (knots * 10) course course over ground heading heading lon longitude lat latitude timestamp_utc date and time station satellite or terrestrial

The dataset contains allele calls for all individuals used in the analyses, and associated collecting informationMicrosatellite loci names are Ctest7, Ctest9, Ctest10, Ctest11, Ctest12, Ctest16, Ctest18, Ctest31, Ctest 32, Ctest36, Ctest47Microsatellite allele calls are diploid. Each allele is denoted by three digits, and both alleles are in the same cell, without separator. The numbers represent the DNA fragment length