Article courtesy of Mote Marine Lab and Aquarium
We’ve satellite tagged our first two sea turtles of the season- Sweet Pea and Amelia!
Mote satellite tagged the first nesting green sea turtle in Sarasota County, Sweet Pea, and Amelia, just a day apart from each other, both green sea turtles that Mote is familiar with.
Sweet Pea was the first nesting green turtle that Mote satellite tagged back in 2007. She was tracked to her foraging grounds in the Marquesas Keys where her tag stopped transmitting. We encountered her this year, returning for her sixth nesting season in Sarasota County, and applied another satellite tag.
Amelia was first observed nesting and received flipper tags on Casey Key in the early morning hours of June 21, 2019. Amelia was tracked to her foraging grounds in the Marquesas Keys, Florida, where she likely rubbed off her tag.
Our team spotted Amelia nesting again on Casey Key this month and attached another satellite tag to her. She is being tracked again, thanks to divers that recovered one of our satellite tags and returned it to us and thanks to a generous donation from Cathy Paris.
Both turtles are being tracked for the second time to learn more about green turtle nesting behavior and to see if they return to the same foraging grounds.