Nuno Vasco Rodrigues is a Marine Biologist and researcher at MARE IPLeiria. He was named “Conservation Photographer of the Year” by Ocean Geographic Society in 2021. For the past three years, Nuno has photographed Upwell’s work tagging juvenile loggerhead turtles in the Azores Archipelago in partnership with the COSTA Project and the University of the Azores, which is part of Upwell’s Lost Years Initiative. Nuno took some time to chat with us about the highlights and challenges of documenting sea turtle releases underwater.
With a team of collaborators, we tested new specially-designed prototypes of Lotek microsatellite tags on 160 juvenile sea turtles of four species in the North Atlantic. The data from these tags was published in a new article, "Novel Microsatellite Tags Hold Promise for Illuminating the Lost Years in Four Sea Turtle Species." We sat down with lead-author Tony Candela to talk about this article, his process as lead-author, and the important implications of these findings for the bio-logging community.
When fishermen and researchers collaborate, they create opportunities to amplify efforts for the research and conservation of sea turtles. This past spring, Upwell participated in these efforts by providing a satellite tag for Liam Neythan, a leatherback sea turtle that was saved in Sinaloa, Mexico. Our collaborators, the fishers Edmundo Rafael Garcías Burgos and Mariano García Olivas, as well as Dr. Alan Zavala Norzagaray and the CIIDIR IPN Unidad Sinaloa are the key collaborators and heroes in this story.
Upwell Research Project Technician Sierra Fullmer shares some of her most exciting sightings while conducting aerial surveys to look for leatherbacks off of the US West Coast.
Most sea turtle species migrate and spend large amounts of their life history in areas of the ocean considered “high seas.” The high seas are the parts of the ocean that are not under the jurisdiction of any nation. In June of 2023, after almost two decades of negotiations, UN Member states adopted the Biodiversity in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction treaty (also known as the High Seas Treaty) to provide a coherent and holistic framework for protecting the high seas. Earlier this month, Upwell Executive Director Dr. George Shillinger attended the High Seas Treaty symposium to learn more about how its implementation may impact sea turtle populations and to seek opportunities to further the protection of turtles at sea.
In 2015, Sean came face to face with one of the most insidious threats turtles face at sea: plastic. He was walking along Playa Ostional in Costa Rica with other sea turtle researchers when they spotted an olive ridley turtle with something protruding from its naris (more or less the word for a sea turtle’s nostril). As they approached the turtle, they discovered it was a piece of plastic.
Have you ever wondered how to tell whether an immature sea turtle is male or female? Or if an adult female sea turtle is preparing to lay eggs? Or whether a sea turtle with visible external fibropapilloma tumors also has hidden tumors on her internal organs? Or if she may suffer from gas bubble disease as a result of fisheries bycatch? The tools of diagnostic imaging can help answer all of these questions.
Little is known about a turtle’s life at sea. Conservation efforts and studies of sea turtles have largely focused on nesting beaches. Upwell aims to learn more about how sea turtles travel the oceans. By understanding where they go and how they use different habitats, we can better advance protections for turtles at sea.
