Leatherback Turtles Dive For Jellyfish

Tagging and tracking leatherback sea turtles has produced new insights into the turtles' behavior in a part of the South Pacific Ocean long considered an oceanic desert. The new data will help researchers predict the turtles' movements in the ever-changing environment of the open ocean, with the goal of reducing the impact of fishing on the endangered leatherback population.

Related story:
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/february/leatherback-turtle-update-020811....
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Category:

Education

Tags:

• environment
• ecology
• marine biology
• sea turtle
• leatherback turtle

[grunder20]

Very intellectual man.

[agapitoflores001]

Oh this is so cute.. I love it..

[no12identify]

I just heared a interview about leatherbacks where they used instraments with sucction cups instead of straps. Wouldn't this be a more animal friendly method then the one you are using?

[Tryambakam]

@MegaMillerBob there will always be trade-offs, i guess it is just a matter of being as unobtrusive as possible. i often wonder how my own research into plants would be different if i did not physically observe them.

[MegaMillerBob]

@Tryambakam There's nothing because there's no way to know if they act differently without it, unless people followed in which case they'd definitely act differently. They're just designed to be as unobtrusive as possible, and have to hope any drawbacks of them are outweighed by what can be done for them with the data.

[Tryambakam]

is there any data on how the tracking devices impede (or not) the leatherbacks in any way? i would hate it if we changed the way in which they do things by using our observational methods to monitor them.