GPS Tracking Being Used to Investigate Turtle Deaths
30 Aug 2016
Each year in Chesapeake Bay, there are hundreds of sea turtles that get washed up, however, researchers are still puzzled as to the reason.
Earlier this summer, the latest sea turtle was spotted in Lusby, Maryland washed up from sea. An intern and a couple of scientists examined the dead turtle and identified it as being a leatherback sea turtle.
Sea turtles are a big problem in Chesapeake Bay and it’s not rare to see them washed up on shore.
According to Virginia Institute of Marine Science’s graduate student, Bianca Santos, in the early 2000s they saw around 200 to 500 strandings. Although a majority of these strandings were dead turtles, they are seeing an improvement in the numbers.
Santos says they now see approximately 100 to 300 strandings each year.
The majority of these turtles are spotted by individuals when they are close to the bay which means more turtles could be washing up onshore that haven’t been spotted yet.
What researchers are not clear about yet is why the turtles are dying and this is a big problem.
A couple of sea turtle carcasses were collected by Santos and her team and they attached a GPS tracking device on them in order to determine where the sea turtles are dying. She says that once they figure out where the turtles are dying, they then can then determine the cause of their death.
Out of all the turtles that Santos and her team studied, they could determine the cause of death from only a few of them. She says that some of the causes are disease, boat strikes and plastic debris in their stomachs. Another reason might be a sudden change in water temperature.
Aside from the few she selected, determining how the turtles are dying is extremely difficult.
She says that because the shells of the turtles are so hard, it makes them fairly resistant to any lesions or marks that may happen and adds that many of the strandings seem to be healthy, normal turtles.
The sea turtles are usually in the bay in the summertime, according to Santos, and many of the strandings occur in late springtime or early summer. As the water gets warmer, they come north and as the water begins to cool, they head back south typically towards Florida.
Researchers believe there are various factors that could be causing these deaths whether it is disease, boats are sudden temperature changes in the water.
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