DURHAM, N.C. – An international team of scientists led by Michael Coyne, research scientist at the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at 91, has received a $460,990 grant to fund a two-year project to track the migration of endangered Atlantic loggerhead and leatherback turtles.

The grant was awarded to Coyne and his colleagues by the University of New Hampshire Large Pelagic Research Program, which is funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“This grant will allow us to conduct satellite tracking of these endangered turtles on a scale previously not possible,” says Coyne, who is a member of the Nicholas School’s Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab faculty.  “We’ll track 20 turtles with satellite tags this year and 30 next year – that’s double and triple the number we’ve been able to tag in past years.”

Information gleaned from the satellite tracking will shed new light on mysteries surrounding the species’ long-distance migrations, and will help biologists and conservationists develop better strategies for managing and protecting the endangered turtles as they crisscross international waters on their annual treks.

To track the animals, Coyne and his associates will attach satellite transmitter tags to the turtles’ shells or carapaces, so that every time a turtle surfaces to breathe satellites orbiting above will calculate its geographic position, which then will be relayed via the Internet to the research team. 

The researchers will tag loggerhead turtles at Cape Verde, a group of islands located off the African coast west of Senegal, and also will tag leatherback turtles in the equatorial waters of the Gulf of Guinea, in the west central African nation of Gabon.

“Cape Verde is thought to be one of the largest nesting populations of loggerheads in the North Atlantic, but it’s also a hotspot for industrial fishing,” Coyne said.  “Likewise, Gabon is believed to be one of the world’s largest nesting colonies of leatherbacks – truly one of the last refuges for these magnificent animals have.”

Co-investigators on the new grant are Patrick N. Halpin, Gabel Associate Professor of the Practice of Geospatial Analysis at the Nicholas School; Brendan Godley, director of the Marine Turtle Research Group at the University of Exeter; and Michael Fedak of the Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of St. Andrews.

An extensive network of local organizations will support Coyne’s team’s work.  In Cape Verde, they include the Cape Verde Instituto Nacional Desenvolvimento Das Pescas and the Universidad Las Palmas-Canary Islands.  In Gavon they include the Parc National de Mayumba, the Wildlife conservation Society and Aventures Sans Frontieres.

Earlier this year, the research team published findings from a two-year study that used satellite-tracking systems to follow the journeys of 10 turtles from Cape Verde.  The study, which was published in May in the journal Current Biology, could turn current conservation strategies upside down, Coyne said, because it contradicts a long-held assumption about loggerhead turtles’ migratory behavior.

Previously, most scientists believed that loggerhead hatchlings migrated into the open ocean to forage, while adults of the species returned closer to shore to hunt for food.  The recent findings suggest otherwise.  By tracking the turtles for up to two years over ranges that covered more than a half-million square kilometers, the researchers discovered that many of the turtles continued to forage in the deep sea even as smaller, breeding-age adults.   

 “This means there are much greater numbers of the breeding population out at sea, and that they are far more vulnerable to the intensive long-line fishing effort that occurs there,” Godley said.

Added Coyne: “From the information collected, we have been able to determine how much time these animals are spending within the sovereign boundaries of each country in the region. This highlights how complicated the migration of marine vertebrates really is and how sophisticated our conservation efforts must be to safeguard these animals.”

Given the range these reptiles can cover, an international cooperative effort in seven African states is needed to create a strategy to protect them, he said.

Research by marine scientists at the Nicholas School and other institutions suggests that international fishing fleets accidentally hook and injure more than 200,000 loggerhead turtles each year. Of these, tens of thousands are thought to die as a result.

Thirty-seven percent of all industrial fishing in the Atlantic Ocean takes place in the general vicinity of Cape Verde and the West African coast.  

More information about tracking sea turtles is available online at . The research team’s paper in Current Biology is online at .