Researcher Uses GPS Tracking to Track Baby Turtle Travels

For a PhD study being conducted by student Natalie Wildermann of James Cook University, twenty-five baby flatback turtles will be sent on a journey on to the Whitsundays; five of them having a particular job to do. This study is designed to document the young turtles travel habits.

These turtles were gathered up in Mackay from four different nests when they first hatched about several months ago.

In order to determine which five turtles were the strongest and largest, Ms. Wildermann and her team were observing the animals closely. A small GPS tracker (solar powered) will be attached on each shell of the selected five.

This GPS tracker does not affect the swimming abilities of the turtles and is less than 10 percent of their weight. A special glue attaches them to the shells and is designed to fall off in around two to three months after research data is gathered. It’s not damaging to the turtle’s shells either.

For as long as the research team has had the turtles, they have been encouraging them to be self-sufficient.

“We’ve tried to have as little human contact as possible and try to have all the conditions as similar as possible to the sea,” Ms Wildermann said.

She says other studies have been conducted on the movements of the turtles at feeding grounds during nesting, however, what they do when newly hatched is not really known.

“It’s very important to understand all the behavior and ecology of the turtles throughout their life cycle,” she said.

She goes on to say that when little, they are very vulnerable, therefore by having more information on what they do and where they go, it will allow them to know the parts to protect and enable them to improve management plans.

In order to evaluate how the turtles move around using ocean currents, computer simulations are used as part of the PhD research. Ms. Wildermann says it was previously thought that the turtles drifted with the currents for getting around which is why they are only seen in the waters of Australia. However, if this were the case, then they would drift to New Zealand and even so far as Peru as other species of turtles do, she says.

The turtles would have to swim in order to stay in the Great Barrier Reef and when they are small, they are strong and active swimmers. When it comes to knowing which direction to swim, Ms. Wilderman says it has been a mystery how the baby turtles manage. However,results from the GPS tracking study revealed baby flatbacks to remain inside the Great Barrier Reef’s boundaries by simply drifting with the current.

Various studies done on this with other species of turtles have suggested there is a geomagnetic field that the turtles follow which tells them where north is. Hearing and smelling is used by other species like lobsters and fish, however, when it comes to the flatback turtles, Ms. Wildermann says more research is needed.

All data that the five GPS trackers collect will be entered into the computer modelling to help with making more meticulous predictions on the travel habits of turtles and where they go.

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