CSP senior scientist, Bryan Wallace, leads new paper on sea turtles published in Nature Scientific Reports. |

New study finds that Canadian waters have disproportionate influence on survival of endangered Atlantic leatherback sea turtles

Turtle-borne video cameras with time-depth recorders (shown on a leatherback, [a]) obtained paired fine-scale video and dive data from leatherback turtles searching (b), locating (c), and capturing jellyfish prey (d) in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Atlantic Canada is a small region with a mighty impact on endangered leatherback sea turtles. For the first time, scientists have been able to quantify how big. In an article published in Nature’s journal Scientific Reports, the authors conclude that Atlantic leatherbacks gather 60% of the energy they need to live for a year in the three months they spend off the Canadian coast each summer.

“Over the years, our satellite telemetry work with leatherbacks and collaboration with local fishing communities has shown that the turtles are annual summer visitors to Atlantic Canadian waters where they feed mainly on jellyfish. This latest study helps us explain exactly how important,” says co-author Dr. Mike James, who pioneered the research on sea turtles in Canadian waters.

“Leatherback sea turtles are among the widest ranging animals in the world, migrating across entire ocean basins,” explains the study’s lead author, Dr. Bryan Wallace, an expert in global leatherback population dynamics. “Why would they leave the warm waters of the Caribbean to swim thousands of kilometers all the way up to colder Canadian waters every year? Because it has the best all-you-can-eat buffet—great food for great value. The jellyfish are so abundant in this area that it is critical to their survival as a species.”

The steep decline of leatherback turtles in the Pacific Ocean—over 90% in the past two decades—provides a warning about the importance of protecting priority areas to safeguard the population.

“Think if a human could hang out in one place for three months and get 60% of the energy they needed to survive for the entire year. We would want to make sure that place was well protected,” explains Dr. James. “It’s the same for leatherbacks. These results underline the incredible global importance of focusing conservation efforts on Atlantic Canada.”

ARTICLE: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-29106-1