Sea Turtle GPS Shows Ocean-Spanning Leatherback Buffet

The fact that leatherback turtles swim thousands of miles is driven home beautifully in this new map of their sophisticated, ocean-spanning movements.

Between 2000 and 2007, biologists attached GPS transmitters to 126 leatherbacks nesting in Indonesia, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. These individuals represent one of three remaining subpopulations of the endangered turtle, which can reach lengths of 6 feet and weigh more than 2,000 pounds.

The map resulting resulting from the transmissions shows creatures that don’t just drift in instinctive obedience to migratory impulse. The leatherbacks navigated in time with season and temperature and current, visiting eddies and boundaries and blooms.

See the original article here.