Discovering Turtle Migration

Almost all sea turtles migrate medially in foraging and nesting surroundings, and at regular intervals to lukewarm waters.  What made this design or this process very amazing is that turtle migration takes them up to hundreds and even thousands of miles.  A human technology, the satellite telemetry, is used by scientists to hunt down the whereabouts of sea turtles and their behaviors upon crossing the entire ocean basins.  The Leatherback holds the record of sea turtles as they journey a surprising 10,000 miles or further annually in quest of jellyfish. You want to know exactly their whereabouts and how long those 10,000 miles is? That is crossing the whole Pacific Ocean from Asia, and then they rally to the West Coast of the United States, then finally to forage off the shores of Washington, Oregon, and California. Amazing, isn’t it?

Next to the Leatherbacks are the Loggerheads. They have a record of almost 8,000 miles. They originate in Japan but migrate to the wealthy waters of Baja, Mexico to forage and grow up and age.  Loggerheads wander back to Japan to reproduce and nest at the time that they have reached sexual maturity.

Let’s discuss another species, the Green Turtles. A great number of these turtles rest their eggs on the shores of a small island somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the Ascension Island. Green turtles live beside the shore of Brazil; they prefer narrow waters with an abundance of sea grasses. However, the Ascension Island is around 2,000 miles from the coast of Brazil and is very challenging to arrive at because of the dominant equatorial current that flows from Ascension to the coast of Brazil. Counting this consideration, it would take 50 days for an adult to contest their way to Ascension Island and approximately 30 days to return.

Now you may ask: "What are the advantages of turtle migration?" One purpose of turtle migration is to save their species. For example, given that Ascension Island is a remote area, the Green turtles have a very great chance of staying away from predators. This means that a successful egg hatching percentage would be remarkably high. 

Turtles are likely to give labor and birth between two and seven times annually and subsequently rest for two to three years until finally their following laying period.These eggs hatch soon after an incubation period of 60 days, granting growth to another generation of turtles.

Going back to the Loggerheads and the Leatherbacks, seeing that they are an extreme migratory type, a very good question would be: How do any of these animals endure the lengthy turtle migration? The answer to it is very astonishing. Researcher Kenneth Lohmann, marine biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who is partly subsidized by the National Science Foundation led a team to study on the survival strategies of the Loggerheads. On the word of the team’s hottest findings, which were issued in two publications, loggerhead turtles are intuitive with a hereditary "magnetic map."

What does this mean? This means that young loggerheads react to a certain magnetic field adjoining northern Portugal by rotating south. With this, they can stay in warmer waters and dodge being brushed north into frosty waters near Great Britain and Scandinavia, where they would undoubtedly turn to ice.

Almost all sea turtles are considered to be a vulnerable species; vulnerable to extinction. The significance of the loggerhead turtle laying shores in many parts of the United States has been recognized without any doubt: they are a household to the second largest populace in the world, which upholds 35-40% of the world inhabitants of this species, making about 68,000-90,000 nests annually.