Turtle Tracks

When we first started studying leatherbacks in Canadian waters, the hypothesis was that if the turtles were here in any numbers at all (and—as funny as it seems now, at the time, that was a big [...]

It has been a slow leatherback season so far. Lots of turtle-less days on the water. So we are thrilled to tell you that we have now satellite tagged Beverly!

It was almost 4 a.m. when my cell phone rang. We had been up late following Margaret’s tracks over the previous few days, so I was sleeping soundly.

On the days when we look and look for leatherbacks at sea and come up empty, or those times when we miss catching the one (or more!) turtles we do see, I’m often oddly satisfied.

The team at Grande Riviere did not find Margaret last night. We have gotten new hits in the last hour from her tag showing her just 3 kilometres west of Grande Riviere beach.

A few minutes ago we got a good-quality satellite hit from Margaret - she's about 1.5 kilometres off the nesting beach at Grande Riviere!

Take a look! Margaret is just off the coast of Grande Riviere, Trinidad. If you haven't already, take a second to guess when and where she will nest.

Here is Margaret's map from this morning. She's not as close to shore as she was last night. She's wandering a bit... pretty common leatherback behaviour.

As of a few minutes ago, Margaret is approximately 20 kilometres from Grande Riviere beach and 40 kilometres from Matura beach.

As of this morning, Margaret is only about 100 kilometres away from the Trinidad nesting beaches!