Friday, August 12, 2011
Sea Turtle Conservation Bonaire (STCB) Places the First 2011 Monitoring Tag on Toyo
Sea Turtle Conservation Bonaire’s (STCB) team of staff and volunteers intercepted a large female loggerhead turtle at 2:45 AM on Sunday, August 1st, 2011 at Playa Chikitu in Washington Slaagbai National Park. After outfitting her with a satellite transmitter attached to her carapace, the team released her. They are now able to track her migration home.
Toyo was the surprise of the night, as the STCB team expected to deploy the transmitter on a green turtle. In the nine years since STCB began systematic beach monitoring, only green turtles have been recorded nesting at Playa Chikitu. But Toyo is a loggerhead, so it was a surprising first for Playa Chikitu and STCB. The fact that Toyo has not laid other nests on this beach (this season or the past nine) and that this is the end of the loggerhead nesting season on Bonaire indicates that she may have been returning from a nesting site elsewhere to her home foraging grounds, and that she suddenly felt the need to lay one more nest, finding Playa Chikitu on her way. Toyo’s name is a combination of “Ton” and “Hayo,” in honor of Quartermaster Ton Akkerman and Policy Advisor Hayo Haanstra of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation (EL&I), who have sponsored the costs of this satellite transmitter to support STCB’s ongoing sea turtle satellite tracking program. RCN-EL&I is responsible for national obligations related to various biodiversity treaties, including the Inter-American Convention for the Protection of Sea Turtles. STCB’s work plays a vital part in the local and national governments’ ability to fulfill treaty obligations related to sea turtles.
Since August 1st, when the transmitter was deployed, Toyo has swum a total distance of nearly 250 km and as of August 10th was now approximately 160 km southeast of Playa Chikitu. After leaving Bonaire, Toyo turned east and reached Las Aves on Saturday August 7th. Las Aves is an archipelago (group of islands), part of the country of Venezuela, located 60 km east of Bonaire (between Bonaire and Los Roques). This archipelago has two groups of islands: Aves de Sotavento (western) and Aves de Barlovento (eastern). Toyo spent about 24 hours in Aves de Sotavento and then kept on swimming east until she reached Aves de Barlovento where she spent another day. It was wondered if Las Aves would prove to be Toyo’s foraging grounds and thus the end of her journey, but she quickly proved this prediction wrong and departed Aves de Barlovento on August 9th, heading in a southerly direction. It is not uncommon for sea turtles to take brief rests on their migrations to refuel with food. The Las Aves reef complex is a “well stocked restaurant” for a loggerhead sea turtle like Toyo. As of August 10th, Toyo has taken another sharp turn to the east and was located approximately 75 km south of Los Roques. She traveled an incredible 66 km on August 9th.
STCB’s satellite tagging program helps to track the migration routes of sea turtles as they travel from their nesting beaches on Bonaire to their adult feeding grounds elsewhere. This research helps determine effective management and protective measures for the conservation of sea turtles throughout the region. To date, STCB has tracked 22 turtles across the Caribbean. (Source: Sea Turtle Conservation Bonaire)
