March 13, 2015 — They are among New England’s most mysterious summertime residents: giant leatherback sea turtles that swim thousands of miles each year to take up residence off our shores and dine on jellyfish.
For years, people have known that leatherback turtles that weigh as much as 800 pounds make occasional forays into New England waters, but a four-year tagging project has for the first time given scientists a detailed look at their wanderings through the Atlantic Ocean.
In a paper published Wednesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, researchers describe the travel patterns of 15 turtles that summered in New England and then fled in winter. From different starting spots, they traveled in the same southeast direction for hundreds of miles, almost like swimmers in their own lanes with each moving parallel to one another in a vast pool.
“They all departed the coast and went straight out in the middle of the ocean, which surprised us because you’d think it would make sense to travel a more coastal route,” said Kara Dodge, a postdoctoral researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Woods Hole who led the research.
Although the researchers can’t tell how the turtles manage this extraordinary navigational feat out in the open ocean, they were able to rule out many factors. The large reptiles aren’t likely to be taking their cues from sea currents or odor, for example. The most likely scenario, the researchers believe, is some combination of navigation by the sun’s position and the earth’s magnetic field.
Read the full story at the Boston Globe