Meet Goose the Green Sea Turtle Released Last Year By the New England Aquarium

Green Sea Turtle (Chelonia mydas)

I found this at the New England Aquarium Marine Animal Rescue Team Blog. Last Thursday marked the one year anniversary of Goose's release. They tagged Goose and have completed a Google earth presentation showing his travels. After a year the transmitter is still working and helping us learn about about this threatened species. See the full post at New England Aquarium website

Migration Route Sent Via Transmitter:

Youtube Description:
Goose the Green sea turtle was rescued in 2008, treated at the New England Aquarium and released in 2009. By fall of 2010 this turtle's satellite tag was still transmitting. Last Thursday marked the one year anniversary of that turtle's release! The Aquarium's Marine Animal Rescue Team revisits some fond looks back over the year of tracking data with this Google Earth video of where Goose has been.

From the U.S. Fish and Wildlife:
Green Sea Turtle (Chelonia mydas)
STATUS: Breeding colony populations in Florida and on the Pacific Coast of Mexico are listed as Endangered; all others are listed as Threatened (Federal Register, July 28, 1978).

DESCRIPTION: The green sea turtle grows to a maximum size of about 4 feet and a weight of 440 pounds. It has a heart-shaped shell, small head, and single-clawed flippers. Color is variable. Hatchlings generally have a black carapace, white plastron, and white margins on the shell and limbs. The adult carapace is smooth, keelless, and light to dark brown with dark mottling; the plastron is whitish to light yellow. Adult heads are light brown with yellow markings. Identifying characteristics include four pairs of coastal scutes, none of which borders the nuchal scute, and only one pair of prefrontal scales between the eyes. Hatchling green turtles eat a variety of plants and animals, but adults feed almost exclusively on seagrasses and marine algae.

REPRODUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT: The nesting season varies with the locality. In the Southeastern U.S., it is roughly June through September. Nesting occurs nocturnally at 2, 3, or 4-year intervals. Only occasionally do females produce clutches in successive years. A female may lay as a many as nine clutches within a nesting season (overall average is about 3.3 nests per season) at about 13-day intervals. Clutch size varies from 75 to 200 eggs, with an average clutch size of 136 eggs reported for Florida. Incubation ranges from about 45 to 75 days, depending on incubation temperatures. Hatchlings generally emerge at night. Age at sexual maturity is believed to be 20 to 50 years.

RANGE AND POPULATION LEVEL: The green turtle has a worldwide distribution in tropical and subtropical waters. Major green turtle nesting colonies in the Atlantic occur on Ascension Island, Aves Island, Costa Rica, and Surinam. Within the U.S., green turtles nest in small numbers in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, and in larger numbers in Florida. The Florida green turtle nesting aggregation is recognized as a regionally significant colony. About 200 to 1,100 females are estimated to nest on beaches in the continental U.S. In the U.S. Pacific, over 90 percent of nesting throughout the Hawaiian archipelago occurs at the French Frigate Shoals, where about 200 to 700 females nest each year. Elsewhere in the U.S. Pacific, nesting takes place at scattered locations in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, Guam, and American Samoa. In the western Pacific, the largest green turtle nesting aggregation in the world occurs on Raine Island, Australia, where thousands of females nest nightly in an average nesting season. In the Indian Ocean, major nesting beaches occur in Oman where 6,000 to 20,000 females are reported to nest annually.

Post new comment

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <h2> <embed> <iframe> <object> <pram>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
1 + 7 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.