SANIBEL, Fla. — Sea turtle nesting season is ongoing on Sanibel, and this year the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation (SCCF) is tagging five sea turtles to learn what they do once they enter the Gulf. The exciting part is that the public can track these turtles from home.
"A lot of the work done on sea turtles is done on nesting beaches because they are so much easier to access. But in reality, turtles spend so much of their lives at sea," said Kelly Sloan, SCCF's Coastal Wildlife Director.
It's that life at sea that Sloan and her team are trying to learn more about.
"We would like to get a bigger picture look at where these turtles are spending their time, so we can look at boat interactions, maybe fisheries, and other threats that might be affecting them," Sloan said.
With the help of donations, SCCF will be able to tag five turtles this summer, with two loggerheads being tagged so far.
"The most important part is the track itself. So, we have a pretty precise GPS location for these turtles out in the Gulf of Mexico. And then we are also able to track depth, and in the future, we are hoping to track the temperature as well," Sloan said.
The temperature of Gulf waters could become even more important with our changing planet.
"We have seen in recent years; the Gulf waters are rising. And a lot of people have been asking the question, how does that affect their migration routes. How does that affect the food that is available to them," Sloan said.
To help SCCF answer some of those questions, they have teamed up with a local company called Hammerhead Technology to design a website to track the tagged turtles. The best part is that the public can track them at home as well.
"It's a great public dashboard that is able to provide that transparency to everybody. Really increase engagement and education," said Corrie Presland-Byrne, Conservation Technologist.
Presland-Byrne says it was designed to get the whole community involved.
"It's supposed to be usable for kids at the Sanibel School, to whatever age possible on this island and really has focus accessibility and usability," Presland-Byrne said.
If you are interested in following along, you can find at this link.
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