Latest Updates on the STRETCH Project
Send Questions to loggerheadstretch@gmail.com
11/27/2023
It has been 7 days since out last update on the locations of our 23 satellite tagged loggerheads. As of this morning, all 23 are continuing to move in a southerly direction (some southeast, some southwest) staying ahead of the cooling waters.
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| The 23 loggerheads (blue dots) still transmitting are arrayed along the 15 degree C isotherm from 37 to 40 degrees latitude and from 126 to 159 degrees longitude. |
11/20/2023
All 23 of our tagged loggerheads continue to transmit accurate locations. I have created a map below that shows their tracks overlayed with the current sea surface temperature.
11/15/2023
Stretch team member Alberto Abreu presented an updated overview of the STRETCH project to a welcoming 25th meeting of the Grupo Tortuguero de las Californias at the Gran Acuario Mazatlán on 15th November. The participants were keenly interested in getting to know what motivated the study and the details of how the project was carried out. A particular interest was to know how the adopted "Mexican" turtles were doing and when we would expect them to reach the Americas, if at all. Most of the people who were honored by having their names adopted for 5 of the tagged turtles were there and expressed profound feelings. Don Victor stood up at the end to manifest his and Mariel's appreciation and happiness that they were able to see the results of scientific studies to which they have generously contributed. Go here to see more about the presentation.
11/13/2023
All 23 of our tagged loggerheads continue to transmit accurate locations. I have created a map below that shows only their current location in case you are interested.
11/6/2023
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| The Nov. 6 locations of 23 juvenile loggerheads are shown above as black dots... each dot has an associated lat-lon. All 23 are north of the edge of the TZCF (see below). |
Jeff Polovina (Stretch Co-PI) has commented on the importance of the Transition Zone Chlorophyll Front (TZCF). "The TZCF is the boundary between the very light green oligotrophic waters (chl < 0.1mgC.m3) and the darker green cooler, more temperate and higher chl waters (ch>0.3mgc/m3). Victor is pretty much at that boundary just slightly north. To the east you see the much higher chl values due to the coastal upwelling and some nice chl filaments. " The map above shows the relative cholorphyll values and the edge of the TZCF - light green chlorophyll values are .07 mg/cubic meter and the darker green values are 0.2 mg/cubic meter. You also notice the dark green area that Jeff refers to above as resulting from coastal upwelling with chlorophyll values from 0.7 t0 1.7 mg/cubic meter (areas with very high productivity).
Chlorophyll concentrations are a proxy for biological productivity... higher values, higher productivity... more food available for our little turtles.
The turtle named Victor is the farthest east and is approximately 550 km from the coast of California.
11/2/2023
Recent tracking of 6 loggerheads and video of presentation about STRETCH by Team member Bianca Santos.
Above is an animation of the 6 loggerheads that continue to move to the southeast (Chuy, Ka La Ula, Nadesiko, Pua Sakura, Tsubaki and Victor). They have traveled an average of ~ 3000 km since their release on July 11, 2023.
Go to the web site to see all of the tracks.
STRETCH Team member Bianca Silva Santos presented an overview of the STRETCH project at the Pices conference in Seattle, WA. Please see her presentation below.
10/26/2023
Co-PI Dana Briscoe has created another wonderful animation of the movements of the juvenile loggerheads relative to the 18 degree C isotherm.
10/23/2023
All 23 juvenile loggerheads continue to transmit locations and they are continuing to move to the south. The six loggerheads that had been moving in a south-easterly direction continue moving to lower latitudes and 4 of the 7 (Victor, Ka La Ula, Tsubaki and Chuy) have turned a little to the west in the last few days. All 23 remain in waters where the temperature is between 16 and 19 degrees C. Below are a few images showing the 7 loggerheads that have been moving to the southeast. Victor, the closest to mainland North America remains approximately 900 km west of California.
10/17/2023
Six loggerheads continue to move south easterly (Tsubaki, Chuy, Ka La Ula, Victor, Nadesiko, and Pua Sakura). It looked like Bety was also trending easterly but has recently been moving pretty directly to the south. The other 16 juvenile loggerheads are also moving to the south or south west remaining within waters that are 10-19 degrees centigrade. Below is a comparison of all 25 tracks (left) and the six turtles that are moving south easterly (Bety is included here also) indicated by the circle. There is also an animation of the 7 loggerheads trajectories up to 10/17/23 in the video below.
Seven loggerheads are trending easterly in their movements (Bety, Tsubaki, Chuy, Ka La Ula, Victor, Nadesiko, and Pua Sakura). In theory, they may continue to move southeasterly as long as the sea surface temperature remails warm enough. If they do, they may reach the SCB (shown above) and be able to move on down towards Baja. We hope to be able to follow their movements over the next few months to see if they continue to move southeast.
10/11/2023
Where are they headed? Jeff Seminoff (Stretch Co-PI) feels that they may be headed to the Southern California Bight. The SCB is a productive area and home to a diversity of whale, dolphin, fish, and lower-trophic prey
species. It is also the only area off California where loggerheads periodically occur en masse. These turtle
aggregations in the SCB can number in the 10s of 1000s of individuals, and most frequently occur during warm El
Niño periods when local waters are their warmest.
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| Southern California Bight |
See Jeff's full explanation here.
10/9/2023
As of Monday, 10/9/23, 6 of our loggerheads are trending southeast and are in waters that are around 17 degrees centigrade. If you look at the map of all 23 currently transmitting turtles, you will note that virtually all of them have "headed south" as cooler waters decend from the north Pacific ocean.
The six turtles making this easterly move are Ka La Ula, Victor, Tsubaki, Nadesiko, Pua Sakura and Chuy.
Below are the tracks of the 6 southeasterly trending
loggerheads. They are in 16 to 19 degree C water.
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10/6/2023
There are 6 of our loggerheads that have begun to move to the south-east and I share their combined paths in the video below.
10/4/2023
Twenty Three of our loggerheads continue to transmit locations with 20 of them remaining largely within the same areas as they were on September 14th. This probably indicates that they are finding forage in those areas and are not needing to travel longer distances in search of food. Three of the loggerheads (Ka La Ula, Tsubaki and Victor) have moved a significant distance to the southwest and this is interesting and exciting for us to see because it is possible they are responding to some stimuli (food, temperature, currents, etc.) that help to validate the premise of this deployment- the Thermal Corridor Hypothesis.
Here are three URLs that will allow you to take a look at each of the three turtles relative to sea surface temperature and surface currents.
Below is a short video of the three loggerheads tracks from July 11 to September 3, 2023. All three of them moved northwards rather rapidly and, as they got into cooler waters, they began to slow down (the "whirling" of the turtles indicates slower movement) and, we believe, forage on more abundant food. As the surface temperatures cooled and the 17 degree isotherm began to move south, they also moved south remaining in waters with a surface temperature between 16 and 18 degrees C.
Our STRETCH turtles are wandering around in the same general area having apparently found waters where they are able to find food. I have assembled the tracks of the group and made a little movie of their movements from 8/19/23 to 9/14/23. When you see them spinning around it means they have remained in an area and gone "back and forth" before moving along.
Above: Animation by Dana Briscoe showing the movement of the loggerhead northward from their point of release until they reach the 17 degree Isotherm and how they are looping back to follow that isotherm.
Above :Animation of tracks of the juvenile loggerheads as they move around an area where we think they are able to find food.
9/8/2023
Twenty-four of our 25 juvenile loggerheads continue to transmit after nearly 2 months. They have slowed their northward movement as they reached 17-18 degree C waters where they have most likely encountered a more abundant food supply. As can be seen in the example track of "Akamai" below, the little loggerheads have begun to meander more, apparently after having found a good feeding area. While we can't know for sure what they are up to, previous work has indicated they are in an area where warm and cold currents converge which concentrates food items.
This video displays Akamai's travels since it was released on 7/11/2023 until 9/8/2023. It has moved steadily north until it reached waters that were 17-19 degrees C where is has lingered because it probably found a favorable food supply.
8/30/2023
Stretch Team PI, Dana Briscoe, has put together a short animation of the 25 satellite tagged loggerheads to show how they are moving north in relation to the 17 degree C isotherm.
8/15/2023
A note from Jeffery Polovina (Oceanographer and Stretch Co-PI)
"I'm intrigued by Kai Malino's behavior between about Aug 4-12. It remains in a pretty small area and may represent foraging activity. Most of the tracks are showing fairly directed transiting behavior moving northward to preferred temperature habitat. Occasionally however we see the turtles slow down to spend time in a small area as Kai Malino did between Aug 4-12. Loggerhead turtles often feed on floating animals including velella velella (by-the-wind sailors), pelagic snails, and gooseneck barnacle attached to floating debris. Kai Malino's departure from its northward transit during the period Aug 4-12 may mean that it came across an aggregation of food."
For more information on the diet of oceanic loggerheads see - oceanic diet
Below is an enlarged track of Kai Malino during the times mentioned by Jeff above.
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| The image on the right is the enlarged section of the image shown on the left. This section spans the time mentioned by Jeff above (8/4 to 8/12/2023). |
Possible food items that might be consumed by juvenile loggerheads
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| Pelagic snail (Janthina sp.). |
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| By-the-wind sailor, Velella velella, a colonial siphonophore. |
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| Gooseneck barnacles living on a float that has washed up on the beach but can be found out in the open ocean where our littel turtles can get at them. |
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| The photo above is of one of our juvenile loggerheads released on 7/11/23 from a ship into the north central pacific. Note the Wildlife Computer tag on its back. It is on the ship's deck while its carrier is cleaned and fresh sea water added. 8/15/2023 This is an update on the tracks of our juvenile loggerhead turtles as of 8/15/23. Twenty four of the twenty five turtles are still transmitting and continue to move northward. Ayame (PTT id no. 243198) has not transmitted since 8/10/23. While we do not know why Ayame has stopped transmitting, previous work (Parker, Balazs, Rice and Tomkeiwicz (2014) Variability in reception duration of dual satellite tags on sea turtles tracked in the Pacific Ocean. Micronesica.) indicates that there could be a multitude of factors that impact signal transmission. The first thing that comes to mind, of course, is that the animal died and sank, but it could also be that there was damage to the tag antenna from an impact, overgrowth by marine algae and invertebrates attached to the tag, tag loss (for some reason it came lose and was lost), tag malfunction because of internal electronics and any combinations of the above. We have had similar situations during our more than 200 previous deployments where a tag stops transmitting. The good news is that we still have 24 loggerheads transmitting strongly. Hopefully, Ayame is ok and still out there doing what turtles do. 8/11/2023 Hau'oli continues to move to the north while the rest of the juvenile loggerheads continue moving to higher latitudes.  |
8/3/2023
Hau'oli changes direction
Checking in on today's tracks we find that the one loggerhead (Hau'oli) that has been behaving differently that the other 24 loggerheads (it has been moving to the south instead of to the north) has turned to the north and is moving along against a small current (.33 kts to the southeast). We, of course, don't know what will happen tomorrow but, for now, Hau'oli is moving to the north-northwest. Before turning to the northwest, Hau'oli was traveling at about 1 km/hr. Turning to the west seems to have slowed progress to about .6 km/h ( that speed plus the opposing current would add up to about 1 km/h).
7/31/2023
Below are two animations of the tracks of our 25 juvenile loggerheads overlain on maps showing the 17 degree C isotherm and the transition zone chlorophyll front (TZCF). In both cases, past tracking has shown that loggerheads favor being near both (17-18 degree C and the TZCF) so they are moving north in that direction. Animations created by Dana Briscoe.
17 degree isotherm and loggerhead tracks.
TZCF and loggerhead tracks.
7/28/2023
As of July 28, 18 days at sea, 24/25 turtles are heading north toward the North Pacific Transition Zone. The northern most turtles are in 18-19C0 water which indicates they are entering this feature where their food is most concentrated (posted by L.Crowder).
For more information on the North Pacific Transition Zone click here.
7/25/2023
Latest Wildlife Computer Map
What are they foraging on out there? It could be any number of things from pelagic crustaceans, jellyfish, salps, larval fish-almost anything they can catch. Loggerhead turtles are opportunistic feeders, and their diet can vary depending on the availability of prey items in different areas and at different times of the year.
Below is a list of all 25 juvenile loggerheads showing the approximate distances they have traveled since their release on 7/11/2023 until their current positions on 7/25/23. Their average rate of travel (km/h) is calculated based on their travel distance and the time since release (~336 hours). (these are all rough estimates)
7/23/2023
As of 7/23/2023, all 25 juvenile loggerheads continue to move northward(map below). The reason for this northward migration is likely the result of cooler waters providing conditions where more food is available. Jeffrey Polovina (one of the project CIs) wrote, " ...this movement, based on our past work, is that the loggerhead turtles have a preferred habitat defined as between 17 and 20 C SST that also typically coincides with an ocean front termed the Transition Zone Chlorophyll Front that likely provides forage. During the summer months this temperature habitat and front shift northward as the ocean warms so the turtles move northward to remain within this habitat. Then of course in the fall the ocean cools and the preferred habitat moves south along with the turtles. Seasonally the little guys move north and south about 1,000 km all while moving east or west."
7/19/2023
Please go to loggerheadstretch.org for more detailed information on the individual paths and the project in general.
As of 7/19/2023, all 25 juvenile loggerheads continue to move northward(map below). The reason for this northward migration is unknown but may be related to water temperature (cooler waters to the north) and the availability of food.
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7/16/2023 |
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| All 25 of the satellite tagged juvenile loggerheads are moving northwards. See the map where you can click on individual turtles and view their names and tracks. |
7/13/2023
Below is the map of the locations and movements of the 25 juvenile loggerheads. Tracks can be seen on the official website.
More images from Masanori and Noah
Our turtle whisperers, Noah and Masanori, have shared a few more photos of their days at sea with their 25 juvenile loggerheads. Please enjoy.
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| One of the juvenile loggerhead turtles with a spot 6-387 Wildlife Computers tag attached. |
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| Masanori Mori (Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium) holding one of the juvenile loggerheads. |
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| Noah Yamaguchi (Kochi University) holding one of the satellite tagged juvenile loggerheads. |
7/12/2023
Below is a map showing the locations and movements of the 25 juvenile loggerhead turtles released from the ship Galaxy Ace on 7/10/2023. So far they have not moved very far as they are undoubtedly acclimating to their new surroundings.
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| Each of the 25 turtles has a name and can be viewed separately as soon as the web site become publicly available (should be available on 7/13). |
7/10/2023
Today was release day for our 25 turtles that have been traveling across the Pacific onboard a cargo ship. They were released by Masanori Mori and Noah Yamaguchi (Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium and Kochi University) who have taken care of the 25 juvenile loggerheads since they were satellite tagged on 19-21 June, 2023. Everyday on board the ship the two would feed the turtles, clean the containers they were living in and keep careful notes of the health of the turtles. The ship moved to 146 degrees west longitude where the water was warm enough to release the turtles, and they were safely released by Masanori and Noah and the ship's crew on July 10, 2023.
LOCATION OF THE RELEASE
Latitude and longitude of the released point
39°18.9N
146°04.0W
seawater temperature is 24.8℃
39°18.9N
146°04.0W
seawater temperature is 24.8℃
All 25 of the satellite tagged turtles are now giving positions, and their locations and tracks can be seen HERE when the website goes active on 7/13/2023.
Pictures sent by Masanori and Noah of the release and the happy crew are shown below
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| The ship's crew gets ready to lower the turtles in a basket by rope from the mid-deck of the ship to get them closer to the water's surface. (photo credit Masanori Mori) |
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| Each turtle was carefully lowered in its basket and then, when the turtle was very near the waters surface, the basket was "tipped up" and the turtle fell out into the North Pacific Ocean to begin its new life. (photo credit Masanori Mori) |
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| Lowering the turtle in the basket down to the waters surface. (photo credit Masanori Mori) |
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| The little loggerhead is free and swimming in the North Pacific ocean. (photo credit Masanori Mori) |
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| Another loggerhead just went "splash"! (photo credit Masanori Mori) |
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| The proud and happy Masanori Mori displays a STRETCH t shirt after all 25 loggerhead turtles were successfully released into the ocean. (photo credit Noah Yamaguchi) |
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| An equally proud, Noah Yamagushi!!! (photo credit Masanori Mori) |
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| And the very supportive and helpful crew pose for a group picture after the release. |
7/5/2023
Reports from our two colleagues escorting the turtles on the ship indicate that the turtles are in good condition and receiving good care. They are feeding and remain active and alert which is a good indication that they are handling the rigors of travel well.
7/3/2023
Our ship of opportunity has left Yokohama Japan and is proceeding on its way across the north Pacific.
It should reach the area where the satellite tagged loggerheads will be released between the 9th and the 11th of July. We wish our intrepid turtle caregivers (Masanori and Noah) good luck in the release of out 25 little turtles.
6/27/2023
The turtles have been safely loaded onto the transport ship and Masanori Mori and Noah Yamaguchi are taking good care of them on the ship until they are released sometime between the 9th and the 11th of July.
We wish them safe sailing and good health (turtles included)!
Below are pictures provided by several people showing the ship and the loading operation.
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| The crew and our "Turtle Guys" - Masanori Mori and Noah Yamaguchi. |
6/22/2023
We had a nice going away dinner at Aloha Cafe last night, and it was fun to relax a little and enjoy each others company. Some members of the team traveled to PNPA this morning to check in on the turtles and they happily reported that all is good.
Larry and Bianca will remain for the next 5 or 6 days to keep an eye on the turtles and then accompany them to the transport ship that will dock in Nagoya on the 27th. Hopefully they will share some photos of the loading.
6/21/2023
We were able to complete the attachment of the rest of the satellite tags for cohort 1 of the STRETCH research project. We finished work around 1230 hours and had a traditional toast to wish the turtles well on the next phase of their life in the central north pacific once they are released.
A juvenile loggerhead is named Lali (Larry) in honor of STRETCH director Larry Crowder.
A toast is given to the former Director of the Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium Itaro Uchida, current director Masanori Kurita, the wonderful people of Japan and the juvenile loggerheads that are beginning their adventure in the central north Pacific Ocean.
6/20/2023
Up at 0600 and headed out to breakfast. We are going to try and get an earlier start at the aquarium as we have 9 turtles to do today.
Below is the video of the attachment of 9 more satellite tags.
Day two of Satellite Tagging video. (higher resolution)
6/19/2023
We are off this morning to our first day of attachment work at the Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium.
AND... we completed the attachment of 7 satellite tags to the juvenile loggerheads turtles raised at the Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium. Below is a short video of the activities of the day. Tomorrow we will continue the work with the attachment of 9 more satellite tags.
6/18/2023
Most of the Stretch team that is going to perform the satellite attachment has arrived in Nagoya. Larry Crowder, George Balazs, Laura Jim, Marc Rice and 2 HPA students are in Kanayama and ready to go!
The students, working with her students, Rice and Balazs organized and programmed the tags for attachment tomorrow. We will do 7 tags tomorrow and 9 on each of the next two days.
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| From left to right, George Balazs, Laura Jim, Haruno and Rico work on organizing and cataloging the Spot 6-387 satellite tags. |
The team assembled at 1900 h and made their way to an introductory dinner at one of our favorite sushi restaurants. Larry Crowder and Dan Briscoe met our two HPA student volunteers and discussed the project and life over some great Japanese sushi dishes.
6/16/2023
Conditions at the "drop zone" continue to look good relative to sea surface temperature as the team prepares to fly to Nagoya to attach the satellite tags to the juvenile loggerhead turtles. We should have more to report in the next few days.
So, stay tuned!
6/13/2023
There are only three days left until our departure for Nagoya Japan. The team will assemble in Kanayama, Nagoya and begin work at the Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium on 6/19/23. The procedure will be to select a number of loggerhead turtles, place each of them in a separate "container," rinse them with fresh water, lightly sand their carapace (like filing your fingernails) to ensure the polyester resin will stick and prepare each one for the attachment. See the "attaching the tags" video for information on how this will be accomplished.
Once the tags have been securely attached and the resin is thoroughly dry, the tags will be painted with antifouling pain so that algal and invertebrate attachment to the tag will be minimized (too much growth will limit uplink data to the ARGOS satellite system).
Once everything is dry, the little loggerheads will be placed in salt water until they are ready for trans-shipment to the North Pacific ocean at approximately 145 degrees W longitude and 17 degree C water temperature where they will be released to fend for themselves (see SST).
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| The white circle indicates the approximately location where the satellite tagged juvenile loggerhead turtles will be released. |
6/9/2023
The First Satellite Tag Deployment
The first attachment and deployment of satellite tags on the first cohort of juvenile loggerhead turtles will take place in the latter part of June and early July. The team (Larry Crowder, Dana Briscoe, Bianca Santos, George Balazs, Laura Jim and Marc Rice + 2 HPA students (Haruno and Rico) will travel to Nagoya, Japan and the Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium (PNPA) on June 16th. They will begin attaching the satellite tags on 6/19 and complete attaching the 25 tags on 6/21or 6/22 (see video below). Once the tags are attached, the turtles will be placed in individual "baskets" in sea water and, at that time, the tags will automatically activate. We will have programmed the tags to send no messages (ARGOS uplinks) for the first 12 day to save battery life since the turtles will not be released until about 14 days after attachment.
Stay tuned for more updates as we do our work at PNPA.
6/2/2023
Cali Turner (Stretch Project Contributing Scientist) reported that a juvenile loggerhead turtle has been spotted off the Southern California coast recently in waters that are 17 degrees C. We don't know if it came up from the south (Baja population of loggerheads) or is a pelagic juvenile that may have traveled from the western north Pacific area. The development of an el Nino pattern is progressing, and warmer waters are moving northwards a little faster that is normal in neutral or la Nina years (see SST).
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| The red marker indicates where the juvenile loggerhead was sighted (images below). |
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| Loggerhead turtles sighted off of Southern California (34, -117). Photo provided by Cali Turner. |
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| Closeup of turtle shown above. Photo provided by Cali Turner. |
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| Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and the location of the loggerhead turtle observed (above). (https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/contour/californ.cf.gif) |
5/31/2023
Below is a video about how we attached Spot 5 satellite tags to juvenile loggerhead turtles in 2009. The SPOT 6 tags are shaped differently but the basic procedure for attaching the tags is the same. This will give you a good idea of the process we will carry out on the 25 juvenile loggerheads that are being raised at the Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium.
5/19/2023
Tonight, George Balazs and Marc Rice activated 24 Spot six tags to test that they are communicating with the ARGOS satellites appropriately. All 24 of them communicated with the satellites very quickly, and we got positions that were generally appropriate and accurate. It is interesting that several of the tags' initial reading was many hundreds of km off but the second recorded position was generally in the right vacinity. It did take a little time for the satellites to figure out where the tags were actually located - usually less than one hour.
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| This Wildlife Computer map shows the locations of 24 Spot 6 tags activated and placed out in the open to initialize them and test for communications with the Argos satellites. This test occurred on 5/19/23 from 1730 hours to 1900 hours. |
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| Satellite tags arrayed on the lawn and cement wall. Tags were turned on at 15-30 second intervals to avoid overlapping signals. |
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| Single spot 6 tag with identification tag. |
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| Spot 6 tags lined up on the wall in the start mode. |
5/13/2023
Satellite Tag Attachment and Deployment
Members of the stretch team will travel to the Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium (PNPA) on June 16 and, over the course of 3 or 4 days, attach the Wildlife Computers Spot 6 tags to 24 juvenile loggerhead turtles that have been raised at PNPA. The turtles will be maintained in sea water at the aquarium for a few days and then they will be loaded on a ship in Nagoya port. They will be escorted by representatives from PNPA and Koichi University who will take good care of the turtles during the voyage and will release them from the ship at a location based on longitude and sea surface temperature. The preferred locations are between 160 and 145 degrees west longitude and a sea surface temperature of 17 degrees C.
5/13/2023
Three of the Spot 6 tags have been tested and passed. They communicated with the ARGOS satellites within an hour of being activated. George Balazs will bring the other 24 tags over for testing some time soon and, once that is done, the tags can be configured for deployment.
5/11/2023
4/8/2023
The Wildlife Computer Spot 6 -387 satellite tags have arrived. George Balazs received them from the factory on 3/7/23. On 3/10/23 George flew to the Big Island and visited Marc Rice to run some tests on the tag and learn the WC Portal and Tag Agent software interface better.
All connection and management tests went well and we are now ready to do the initialization test to confirm that the tags are able to communicate with the ARGOS satellites.
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| Above is a Spot 6 tag, one of 27 we hope to deploy on juvenile loggerheads raised by the Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium. |
4/8/2023
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| Satellite tagging juvenile loggerhead turtles. |
The STRETCH team has been working on a new website that should come online in the next couple of months. This interactive website will feature information about the North Pacific loggerhead turtle, its life cycle and Pacific wide distribution and a description of the STRETCH project and what we hope to learn. There will be brief bios of the STRETCH team members and much more.
The schedule for the project is moving forward also. It is projected that our "turtle deployment" ship will sail some time in June, and we are planning to have the first cohort of 25 juvenile loggerhead turtles (being raised at the Port of Nagoya Public aquarium) equipped with their Wildlife Computer's Spot 387 satellite tags in time for them to make it to the ship for departure. The sat tag attachment team is on standby for a quick departure to Nagoya once we learn of the sailing date for the ship.
Attaching 25 satellite tags will take roughly 4 days to accomplish (doing 8 or 9 turtles each day). Tagged turtles will be placed into an individual "basket" that is in sea water while the rest of the tag attachments are completed. This will keep each turtle separated so that they don't damage the tag antennas before they are deployed in the Central North Pacific ocean somewhere between 140 and 160 degrees west longitude. The site of deployment will depend on the sea surface temperature and the weather (it must be fairly calm to deploy the turtles safely from the ship).
Once the turtles are safely released, we should be getting location fixes from the ARGOS satellites within a few days and those locations will be posted on the loggerhead stretch website as they become available.
The website will be found at http://loggerheadstrech.org once it becomes available and there will be an email address for communications (loggerheadstretch.gmail.com).
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