Migratory patterns of Yucatan Peninsula hawksbills

Data provider
Grupo de trabajo para la tortuga carey (Mexico)
Originating data center
Satellite Tracking and Analysis Tool (STAT)
Project partner
This study represents a collaboration between the Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnologia (UNAM), ProNatura Peninsula de Yucatan, Comision Nacional de Areas Naturales Protegidas (SEMARNAT), Laguna de Terminos- Area de Proteccion de Flora y Fauna, Chelonia Inc (Puerto Rico), and NOAA.
Project sponsor or sponsor description
This project (CAMP-2005-C01-046) is financed jointly by the Campeche State Government and the Mexican National Science and Technology Council (CONACYT). Further support from NOAA, which we thankfully acknowledge, has permitted us to extend the scope of the initial project.

The hawksbill population that nests in the Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico) is considered the largest in the Atlantic and one of the four largest in the world. However, from about 6,400 registered annual number of nests in 1999 (when the Mexican population represented about 43% of all recorded hawksbill nests in the Greater Caribbean), the population's reproductive output dropped to less than 2,400 nests/yr by 2004. No single cause has been demonstrated but as major nesting sites are under protection this alarming decline (a drop of 63% in 5 years) is suspected to be associated with threats impacting the species at foraging grounds or migratory routes. Unfortunately not only has there been no capacity to study and protect these habitats but, with the exception of studies by Byles and Swimmer (1994) and Garduño et al. (2003), there is also insufficient information on the routes taken and foraging destinations for the various rookeries in the region. To address these issues, the current satellite tracking project was instrumented to reveal the post-nesting migratory behavior of hawksbills in the Yucatan Peninsula, starting in 2006 with animals nesting in Campeche State, where about 50% of the reproductive output by the species in the whole Peninsula is concentrated.

Knowledge on the migratory routes and foraging sites will be helpful in identifying and mitigating potential threats in the marine habitats and for the establishment of research programs on the status of the habitats themselves. Furthermore, discovering whether or not these lie within or outside Mexican territorial waters has important consequences for the management strategies. If they are inside, the responsibility for addressing the hawksbills' conservation needs is totally Mexico's. If, on the other hand, some or all of the turtles cross into international waters or into other countries' jurisdictions it would indicate an internationally shared responsibility.

Future studies by the group will be directed towards tracking hawksbills nesting in the two other sates using similar techniques and learning from the lessons obtained from this season's experience.

Literature cited
Byles, R. A. and Swimmer, Y. B. 1994. Post-nesting migration of Eretmocheyls imbricata in the Yucatán Península. In: K. A. Bjorndal, A. B. Bolten, D. A. Johnson and P. J. Eliazar (compilers). 1994. Proc. Fourteenth Ann. Symp. Sea Turtle Biol. and Cons. NMFS-SEFSC-351. p. 202.

Garduño-Andrade, M., Schroeder, B. Balazs, G. and Lope, R. 2003. Migration and dive behavior of female hawksbills (Eretmochelys imbricata) in the Yucatan Peninsula. In: Seminoff, J. A. Compiler, Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation. NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-SEFSC-503, p. 285

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Overview

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