Gabon 2007: Mayumba, Olive Ridley Turtles

A project of Marine Turtle Research Group in conjunction with the partners and sponsors detailed below.

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Introduction

Advances in tracking technology have created a global understanding of sea turtle at-sea movement and behavior. This combined with efforts to understand the global distribution of human interactions with sea turtles gives the ability to enact global sea turtle conservation. Strikingly missing from this suite of understanding is the olive ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea), particularly Eastern Atlantic populations. Using satellite tags deployed from Gabon, Africa, we aim to determine olive ridley foraging strategies and oceanographic habitat, determine multi-species turtle hotspots, and their interactions with fisheries. This will result in a greater understanding of one of the least-studied species of sea turtle, where this species overlaps with other sea turtle species, and the ability to create effective fishery mitigation leading to comprehensive sea turtle conservation.

Sara Maxwell, a graduate student from the University of California at Santa Cruz will be deploying this first set of tags on the Olive ridley's in Gabon.

Project Partners

In conjunction with Parc National de Mayumba, the Wildlife Conservation Society, Aventures Sans Frontieres, researchers from seaturtle.org, the University of California - Santa Cruz and the University of Exeter have attached satellite transmitters to female olive ridley turtles nesting at Mayumba National Park, Gabon.

Many thanks to the following individuals for their invaluable help:

- Solange Ngouessono - Conservator of Mayumba National Park

- Richard Parnell - WCS Mayumba

- Aimee Sanders - WCS Mayumba

- Mike Markovina - WCS Mayumba

- Elie, Alain Brice, and Souami - Ecoguards WCS and Mayumba National Park

- Daniel Costa - University of California Santa Cruz