Salty1

Casey Key Loggerheads 2010

A project of Mote Marine Laboratory.

click map for full-size version Salty (Loggerhead) is 109 km N of the coast of Mexico and 300 km from Merida

Full-Size Map (114KB)
Zoom Map (54KB)

Species: Loggerhead
Life Stage: Adult
Gender: Female
Release Date: 2010-05-28 00:00:00
Release Location: Casey Key
Last Location: 2011-06-06 22:04:19

Adoptive Parents:
Mrs. Chambers' 4th Grade Class
June/Paul Mcintosh
Mrs. Hook and Mrs. Allen's 1st grade classes
Miss Haab
Ansel Scholl and Clara Scholl
Matt Vernhout
Mrs. Danubio's 4th & 5th Grade Class
DeBordieu & Hobcaw SCUTE

Background

Salty is a remigrant turtle, first tagged in 1988, so a known 22 year span of reproductive history. Since loggerheads are thought to mature around 30 years, Salty would be at least 50+ years old. Pretty amazing!
There were few houses at all on Casey Key when Salty was a hatchling, although many houses now line the coast. It is great that most residents keep their lights off for the turtle season (with a gentle reminder from Sarasota County Environmental Services), as Casey Key has the lowest rates of hatchling disorientation for Sarasota County.
Salty measured 104.6 cm curved carapace length, so a pretty big girl who made the plywood corral creak every time she flexed. Salty is sponsored by Wooster School and its Field Studies Program. The program is supervised by Chris Lener, who studies loggerhead epibiota as a predictive method to infer a turtle's home foraging area. There was some neat bioluminescence on Salty's shell and fortunately the thunderclouds stayed away so the students could enjoy the full moon. The Wooster students(Corey, Austin, Grace, and Joey) assisted Salty back to the water and wished her well, what a great way to spend the Memorial Day holiday on a learning expedition.
6/15/10 update. Salty was seen again on a false crawl and we attached a geomagnetic tag and a bioacoustic tag.