Gabon 2012: Pongara, Leatherback Turtles

Data provider
Marine Turtle Research Group
Originating data center
Satellite Tracking and Analysis Tool (STAT)
Project partner
This project is a collaborative effort between the Gabon National Parks Agency, the Gabon Sea Turtle Partnership, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Marine Turtle Research Group at the University of Exeter.
Project sponsor or sponsor description
The project is generously funded by VAALCO Inc. and Harvest NR.

The Gabon Sea Turtle Partnership has estimated that between 36,000 and 126,000 leatherback nests are laid on Gabon’s beaches every year, about 50% of which occur in Mayumba National Park, and about 23% in Pongara National Park (Witt et al. 2009). This degree of reproductive effort suggests that Gabon hosts the largest nesting population of leatherback turtles in the world, and approximately 60% of all nesting females in the entire Atlantic Ocean.

The objectives of this satellite tracking project are:

(a) Determine the number of nests laid per season per female and the duration between each nesting event.
(b) Assess the distance between successive nests during the season.
(c) Develop distribution maps of nesting and inter-nesting habitat use through high-resolution location data and diving behaviour data.
(d) Study the acoustic environment to which turtles are exposed at sea, through sound recording on the turtle.
(e) Evaluate the effectiveness of current protection measures and propose management regimes tailored toward addressing the overlap between sea turtle distribution and behaviours and anthropogenic activities.

N/A

Visit STAT's project page for additional information.

The dataset has been updated over time as outlined below. Each entry includes the version number, release date, type of change, and a short description.

Overview

Attributes are defined by seaturtle.org.

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
oid	Unique ID number (generated by OBIS-SEAMAP)
sort	Internal use
uid	Unique ID assigned by STAT
prognum	Program number
tag_id	PTT ID
utc	Date and time in UTC
lc	Location class
iq	Quality indicator
lat1	Latitude in decimal degrees
dir1	Dir 1
lon1	Longitude in decimal degrees
dir2	Dir 2
lat2
dir3	Dir 3
lon2
dir4	Dir 4
nb_mes	Number of messages received
big_nb_mes
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
tsn	ITIS Taxonomic Serial Number added by OBIS-SEAMAP
timestamp	Numeric timestamp
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
dataset_id	Dataset ID by OBIS-SEAMAP