Sunday, March 23, 2014

Study on Migration Habits of Leatherback Turtles

A recent satellite tagging study of the endangered leatherback turtle has unearthed a lot of information about their migratory habits. Many studies have been done on adult females, but this study mainly focuses on the behavior of immature and adult male leatherbacks, since so little is known about them. Knowing about the male turtles completes the picture and give scientists a better look at the species and its habits as a whole. This new knowledge is important because leatherbacks are sensitive to human activity and can act as a gauge of sorts to indicate the depths of our influence on their habitat and the habitat of many other species.
Read the full article here.

NOS Themes
Role of motivation and curiosity - the scientists are driven to learn more and are curious about the habits of the leatherback turtles.
Science is collaborative - data from this study and other studies are pieced together to get the full story of leatherback turtles.
Role of credibility - the status/position of the researchers is listed in the article to establish credibility.

3 comments:

  1. This is a really cool article. I am interested to see if scientists will see this study and look at what else we can study to get a better indication of how we are impacting the lives of animals. Knowing more about where the turtles live can be very beneficial in preserving their habitat while still pursuing our own interests.

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  2. I enjoyed reading the article! As much as it seems like a kindergarten job, marine biology is something that I find very interesting. After doing a little bit of research on these animals, I actually found that conservation for them was a huge project! Apparently every year, at least 10,000 female nesting turtles are tagged by the Turtle Village Trust in order to increase conservation for this species. It'd be interesting to see if there was any way to locally help these turtles, even though we live in Minnesota

    Link to article: http://guardian.co.tt/lifestyle/2014-03-23/geo-tagging-turtle-hatchery-boost-local-conservation

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  3. I looked more in to what satellite tagging is, and I found a project on the studies. I wondered if we could continue this kind of project with other animals. In my research, I found that satellite tagging is so big, that it is too big to be used on smaller animals. I believe that with current technological advances, and continuing transmitter use, we can make these taggers smaller, and we can continue to study other animals. This kind of study is key in our understanding of the world.

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