North Carolina Long-Term Sea Turtle Monitoring Project

Data provider
SEATURTLE.ORG Animal Tracking Program
Originating data center
Satellite Tracking and Analysis Tool (STAT)
Project partner
Seaturtle.org, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and Duke University Marine Laboratory
Project sponsor or sponsor description
Hammocks Beach State Park, of the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation, facilitated the tagging of Pati

This project seeks to find out more about the migratory movements and foraging behavior of loggerhead sea turtles from North Carolina. Four nesting females have been tracked each year from 2003 through 2008 and made impressive movements as far north as New Jersey, and south as far as the Bahamas and Florida Keys. To date the transmitters have provided novel data about the migratory and foraging behavior and natural history of the loggerhead sea turtle in this region (Hawkes et al 2007). Recent studies suggest that rising temperatures in Florida may threaten successful production of loggerhead hatchlings and that the northern subpopulation of loggerhead sea turtles in the southeastern US (Georgia to North Carolina) may represent a buffer against potential climate change (Hawkes et al 2007). This project complements results from previous years and provide insights in to the long-term movement patterns of this critical segment of the largest loggerhead nesting population in the world. Through the deployment of a small number of satellite transmitters over a large timespan we hope to monitor and document potential changes in individual and population level movement patterns.

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