Deepest Diving Sea Turtle

Leatherback turtles in the Pacific have declined in the past 30 to 40 years, mainly as a result of drowning in fishing nets. Photograph: Wayne Lynch/Photoshot

 

Deepest Diving Sea Turtle

On February 2, 2009, at 4 am, a turtle known as Tika left the coast of Gabon, West Africa. He spent nearly six months of swimming across the Atlantic, a 5,000 mile (8,000 km) trip to the coast of South America. At the moment it is likely that somewhere over Brazil, eating jellyfish and building itself up. In about March of next year, will begin its journey back to Africa, and if all goes well, then it will build a nest and lay eggs in the sand Mayumba national park in Gabon. And this is one of many return trips of 10,000 miles in his life that makes 50 years.

Scientists know this because for the first time, have continued to travel for leatherback turtles while crossing the Atlantic Ocean, with Tika travel farther than the 25 women who were followed in a study lasting more than five years. She and another woman named Regab ended in the waters off Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. Others stayed closer to Africa, but his journey took months and he swam thousands of miles. One, called by researchers Caroline, swam to the middle of the Atlantic for over a year and a half, which registers more than 7,000 miles, before returning to play.

The maps of his travels, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, is an important means to document and preserve the rare creatures in the Atlantic Ocean, the scientists involved. In the Pacific, the leatherback turtle numbers have plummeted in recent decades, as they are caught and drowned in fishing nets.