Ghana Olive Ridley Project

Data provider
SEATURTLE.ORG Animal Tracking Program
Originating data center
Satellite Tracking and Analysis Tool (STAT)
Project partner
This project is a partnership between SEATURTLE.ORG, Florida Gulf Coast University, the Hlamhi Association for Turtle Conservation and Hope (HATCH), the University of Ghana and the Ghana Wildlife Division, Forestry Commission.
Project sponsor or sponsor description
This project is sponsored in part by the Disney Worldwide Conservations Fund, SEATURTLE.ORG and the Hlamhi Association for Turtle Conservation and Hope (HATCH).

Historical records indicate that green, olive ridley, hawksbill, and loggerhead sea turtles once utilized Ghana’s coastal waters as foraging grounds. Records also indicate leatherback, green, olive ridley, hawksbill, and loggerhead also utilized Ghana’s shore as nesting habitat. There has not been a confirmed loggerhead or hawksbill nest in Ghana for 25 years indicating these two species have most likely been extirpated from the region. Currently, the leatherback, olive ridley, and green sea turtles are the only remaining species nesting in Ghana. Sea turtles in this region are exposed to a maze of fishing vessels and nets that must be carefully avoided to reach the nesting beach. Each year large sea turtle stranding events are documented during time periods of off-shore and near-shore fishing. Illegal commercial fishing activity occurs regularly in shallow off-shore waters, whereas commercial and subsidence fishing take place near-shore and off the beach. Understanding the temporal and spatial movement patterns of olive ridleys would provide information on the interaction of sea turtles and fisheries in Ghana's waters.

With funding from the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund, we are gathering knowledge and creating educational programs necessary to implementing a conservation program that is socially and economically self-sustaining over the long term. The proposed research will answer key questions about the ecology of olive ridley sea turtles that will allow limited existing resources to be used most effectively into the future, and will incorporate educational programs to reverse the social perception of sea turtles so that their preservation is part of the cultural norm.

N/A

Visit STAT's project page for additional information.

Overview

This section explains attributes included in the original dataset. OBIS-SEAMAP restricts the attributes available to the public to date/time, lat/lon and species names/counts only. Should you need other attributes described here, you are encouraged to contact the data provider.

Attributes described below represent those in the original dataset provided by the provider.
Only minimum required attributes are visible and downloadable online. Other attributes may be obtained upon provider's permission.

Attributes in dataset

Attribute (table column)	Description
prognum	Program number
tag_id	PTT ID
lc	Location class
iq	Quality indicator
dir1	Dir 1
nb_mes	Number of messages received
big_nb_mes	definition not provided
best_level	Best signal strength in dB
pass_duration	Pass duration in seconds
nopc	Number Of Plausibility Checks successful (from 0-4)
calcul_freq	Calculated frequency
altitude	Altitude used for location calculation
sensors	Sensors
species	Species name
project_id	STAT Project ID
lc_filter	Parameters to location filtering
speed_filter	Parameters to speed filtering
distance_filter	Parameters to distance filtering
topo_filter	Parameters to topo filtering
time_filter	Parameters to time filtering
angle_filter	Parameters to angle filtering
life_stage	Life stage of the animal
gender	Gender of the animal
wetdry	Wet or dry
wetdry_filter	Parameters to Wet or dry filterint
obs_datetime	Date and time (local time zone)
timezone_h	Time difference from UTC