"Urashima Taro" - Grupo Tortuguero: Pacific Sea Turtle Tracking

A project of Grupo Tortuguero Tracking Project.

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Background

"Urashima Taro" is a juvenile loggerhead who was captured in the Pacific Ocean outside of Bahia Magdalena and released on 25 July 1999. This turtle is named after a young fisherman in a Japanese folk story who travels with a sea turtle to a beautiful, enchanting undersea world where he spends several years. When he returns to the land, as his misses his home, he finds that 300 years have passed and that no one remembers him. It strikes me that this story echoes that of the loggerheads' developmental migrations from Japan to Baja California and around the Pacific Ocean. The young loggerheads returning to Japan as adults after 30 years or so. However, when they return to Japan they will find that unlike Urashima they haven't been forgotten!

• The presentation of data here does not constitute publication. All data remain copyright of the project partners. Maps or data on this website may not be used or referenced without the explicit written consent of the data owners.
• For more information please visit the project website.
• This map connects positions generated by the ARGOS system designated as location class (lc) '3', '2', '1', '0', 'A', 'B'. Locations that have been "filtered" are displayed as small red dots.
• This maps also shows locations of class 'A' as small black dots which are not connected by a route line.
• Bathymetry layers are derived from the GEBCO One Minute Grid.
• Sea surface temperature and chlorophyll are derived from NASA's Ocean Color data.
• Ocean currents and sea surface heights are derived from AVISO's Ssalto/Duacs Gridded Absolute Dynamic Topography & absolute geostrophic velocities data.

SEATURTLE.ORG collaborates with Argos to help scientists and conservationists manage and analyse their valuable animal tracking data.