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Cape Verde Turtle migrationCape Verde Turtles roam far more widely than previously thoughtTurtle journeys are among the longest in the animal kingdom and they have largely remained a mystery until now. An international team of scientists has uncovered the migratory secrets of endangered loggerhead turtles in West Africa and the results could have huge implications for strategies to protect them. In a paper in the journal Current Biology, Drs. Brendan Godley and Michael Coyne and an international team describe how they used satellite tracking systems to follow the journeys of ten turtles from Boa Vista, which is one of the world's largest nesting sites for loggerheads and also a hotspot for industrial fishing. What they found could turn current conservation strategies upside down, as the team discovered the turtles adopted two distinct approaches to finding food, linked to their size. Previously it was thought that hatchlings left the coastal region to forage far out at sea before returning, later in life, to find food closer to shore. However the new findings show that the oceanic habitats contained far larger animals than was previously thought. The team tracked the turtles as they left nesting sites, following them for up to two years over ranges that covered more than half a million square kilometres. Dr Brendan Godley, of the University of Exeter, said: "We were surprised to find such large turtles looking for food out in the open ocean, as it was previously thought that animals of this size would have moved back to forage in coastal zones. This means there are much greater numbers of the breeding population out at sea and far more that are vulnerable to the intensive long-line fishing effort that occurs in that region."Dr Michael Coyne, Director of SEATURTLE.org and a research scientist at Duke University, added: "From the information collected, we have been able to determine how much time these animals are spending within the sovereign boundaries of each country in the region. This research highlights how complicated the migration of marine vertebrates really is and how sophisticated our conservation efforts must be to safeguard these animals. Given the range these reptiles can cover an international cooperative effort in seven African states is needed to create a strategy that would protect them." |