Updated! California Sea Turtle Crossed the Pacific

Our first turtle of the 2009-2010 monitoring season was equipped with a satellite GPS tag on November 5th, 2009. Anyone who was interested in following this turtle, named Bonita, could sign up on SeaTurtle.org to receive updates by email as Bonita continued on her journey. After spending at least a few months (see Nov-Jan tracks) in the San Diego Bay, Bonita's tag was removed and used to follow another sea turtle.

Bonita's tag had been placed on a leatherback sea turtle!

On April 15th I received an email showing that this new turtle wasn't in California's waters anymore! And three subsequent emails, the latest one coming just this morning, shows that the leatherback has traveled over 6,700 miles (10,819 km), crossing the entire Pacific ocean, and is currently north of Papua New Guinea! This tag has been transmitting information for over 200 days. This preliminary information - posted earlier this week - was at first thought to be on a green sea turtle - which didn't really make a whole lot of sense! - because this type of migration is not part of their life cycle. So, it has now been confirmed by researchers in charge of this project - that the tag was placed on a leatherback sea turtle - who now appears to be nesting in Jamursba Medi, in West Papua.



In San Diego, we have green sea turtles in the Bay, but other species of sea turtles found off California's coast travel great distances and even cross the Pacific. Leatherback sea turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) tagged off of California's central coast have been tracked all the way to the South Pacific where they nest in Papua, Indonesia. And some loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) feed on pelagic crabs off of Baja, Mexico and nest thousands of miles away in Japan.


Sources and additional information:

Bonita's/ NOW LEATHERBACK Tracking page at SeaTurtle.org

2004 Green Turtle Assessment

Recovery Plan (1998) - East Pacific Green Turtle

Recovery Plan (1998) - Pacific Green Turtle

Loggerheads and fishery interaction in the East Pacific

Leatherback tracking

San Diego Bay Research - NOAA SWFSC