The following
video shows a camera placed on top of a
turtle´s shell and the images reveal the
animal´s perspective. Some little
turtles were also monitored throughout the Brazilian coast.
During the
night there is some stir in the sand. All of a sudden a newborn pops out. A
couple of minutes later the nest yields
tens of little turtles which by instinct run towards the sea. The beach is teeming
with predators. Every year, around one million young turtles are born at the Brazilian beaches, but out in
the wild, only one in a thousand reaches adult life.
The first
day is the most dangerous. The little ones who survive the attacks and manage
to get to the water still have to face attacks by birds and fish. What happens
to them from this moment on is a mistery. Where do they go? Where do they feed? In an
attempt to answer such questions
researchers from the Tamar Project and the Florida Atlantic University are
working together on a singular project – a camera placed on the back of a turtle reveals it all.
Our friend
swam among sharks, made some beautiful underwater images at the Bahia
seashore. But the researchers want to
know more. For the first time they attached chips to little turtles and tracked
down their whereabouts by satellites in
their first months of marine life.
Kate
Mansfield, the American biologist, adapted transmitters used on birds. The greatest challenge, according to her, is
to keep the transmitter attached to the offspring´s shell. Due to the young
turtles´ quick growth, the transmitter would easily detach . The answer came to
Katie when she was at the manicurist. As
the shell and our nails are pretty much
alike, I decided to sandpaper it a
little before applying an acrylic foundation.
Silicon helps hold it together.
The battery is solar powered and lasts 10 hours; recharging takes two days.
We left the
base of the Tamar Project at Praia do Forte, northern Bahia, and headed 10
kilometers offshore to release three young turtles. The first turtle is the oldest, 11 months old
and about 7 inches long. The other two
are younger, 4 and a half months old and about 5 inches long. If the turtles
are too small, there is no way of attaching the transmitters to them. It was first developed in lab conditions so
as to demonstrate no harm was done to the animals and nor their behavior was
affected by the transmitters.
After the turtles
are released into the sea, their
coordinates are marked. The equipment contains buoys and GPS devices and also
sails – its mains purpose is to show the currents patterns in the surroundings.
One of the animals is released close to the equipment .
The older
turtle went southwards, and soon went off
the coast, in oceanic waters and
then changed its course,
northbound. After 43 days it stopped
transmitting signals. It had swum 1,215 kilometers (754,97 miles).
One of the
smaller turtles went off the coast, returned and went northwards. It stopped
transmitting after 68 days, offshore Pernambuco state, after swimming 2,581 km
( 1,603.76 miles).
The other
little turtle went south, along the shore, and after 100 days, it is still
sending signals. According to the last recording it had swum 2,385 km (1,481.97
miles) and was next to Sao Paulo state.
The
researcher states that the purpose is to reveal what happens in the first year
of life, currents and winds being strong determinants. Such study will be
tallied with results from transmitters placed on adult turtles. The adult ones
which had been monitored went north and fed themselves next to the Ceara state.
By the time they were tracked down, the
current was northbound.
Want to engage in satellite tracking? Try this site
