GRAND TURK, Turks and Caicos Islands; Tuesday, July 21st, 2009 - The Turks and Caicos Islands Turtle Project has for the first time successfully attached hi-tech satellite tags to marine turtles in Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) waters as part of research to track marine turtle migrations. The project is collaboration between the Department of Environment and Coastal Resources (DECR) and the School for Field Studies (SFS) in TCI, and the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) and the University of Exeter, United Kingdom.
Two turtles have been tagged by the project to date. They include a hawksbill named Felicia and a green turtle named Suzie; both adult females and both can be tracked online by anyone around the world with internet access. The satellite tags used in the project were funded by the British Chelonia Group and the People’s Trust for Endangered Species.
"We are delighted to be supporting this fantastic project,” said Jill Nelson, Chief Executive of the People's Trust for Endangered Species, the main sponsor of the tracking project. “We feel it is of utmost importance to protect the adult turtles so that they are able to breed, and by tracking Felicia and Suzie - we are learning about their range and making a step towards achieving this goal."
Suzie was the first turtle to be tagged by the project team after a South Caicos fisher landed her on the 24th June. MCS Project Officer Amdeep Sanghera, University of Exeter PhD student Tom Stringell, DECR’s Tommy Philips and the SFS’s Marta Calosso led the attachment of Suzie’s tag at the DECR lab in South Caicos that night. Suzie was then taken to her point of capture off East Caicos the following morning and released back to sea. Amdeep and Tommy tagged Felicia a few days later on Fish Cay, after she successfully nested there on the night of June 30th. Tommy named the turtle in honour of his daughter Felicia.
“While there are many smaller juvenile turtles in TCI’s waters, we are concerned that populations of the large adult turtles that come to TCI specifically to breed may have declined,” said Amdeep Sanghera, TCI Turtle Project Officer. “These adults are critical in sustaining TCI’s native turtle populations, and by tracking their movements we can get an idea of where these breeding turtles go and where they might need protection in TCI waters and elsewhere in the Caribbean.”
The turtles’ tags, which are expected to last for up to a year, transmit signals to satellites orbiting in space when the turtles surface to breath, and these signals reveal the animals’ locations. The project team hope to tag a total of six turtles in TCI and will track their migrations remotely via the internet using
seaturtle.org's ground-breaking programme known as STAT. STAT communicates with the satellite system and plots online, daily maps of the turtles movements. The maps, pictures of the turtles and more information can be viewed online at
www.mcsuk.org.
This exciting and pioneering project has revealed new information about the TCI’s marine turtle populations. The DECR encourages Turks and Caicos Islanders to follow the turtles online, and respectfully urges anyone who sees any turtles with satellite transmitters glued to their shells in TCI waters to please leave them well alone and report their sightings to DECR at 649 243 4895.
Nevertheless, for more information and photographs, please contact: Peter Richardson, Biodiversity Programme Manager, Marine Conservation Society (MCS), Tel: +44 (0)1989 566017, e-mails:
peter@mcsuk.org or Amdeep Sanghera, TCI Turtle Project Officer, Tel: 1 (649) 243 4895, e-mail:
amdeep.sanghera@mcsuk.org
END
