Episode 37 – Tagging Sea Turtles 

Transcript, Episode 27, Tagging Sea Turtles 

Host: Welcome to Seas the Day, a podcast from Duke University Marine lab. I am Matthew Godfrey, adjunct Faculty at the Duke Marine lab, and I am here to introduce another podcast focused on sea turtles. In this episode, students Claire Helgerson, Kendra Rentz, and Anna de Hostos discuss the topic of data sharing, which can be important for the conservation of migratory species such as sea turtles. In particular, they investigate how sea turtle tagging data are managed, by different researchers and organizations. Here they are with their podcast.

 

KENDRA: Imagine you are a sea turtle researcher on the coast of North Carolina. You come across a nesting loggerhead sea turtle. Hurray! It has a flipper tag. Unfortunately, the return address on the back of the tag has scratched off… darn. After collecting your data and measurements, you go back to the office, where you now sit in front of the glowing screen of your computer. Time to deepdive into the internet and reach out to the Archie Carr Cturtle listserv. It is at times like these where you wish that there was some sort of global sea turtle database to search for your tag that could make your life a whole lot easier!

 

ANNA: And you wouldn’t be alone! Hi, my name is Anna.

CLAIRE: And my name is Claire.

KENDRA: And I’m Kendra. Today we will be talking about sea turtle tagging databases and data management!

 

ANNA: Sea turtle tagging is a hugely powerful tool within the conservation community. Scientists place tags on turtles to easily identify certain individuals and gain valuable data from resightings, generally from a nesting beach or at a foraging ground. We can better our understanding of their individual behaviors, nesting histories, and migratory patterns by tagging at their nesting and foraging locations. But, wait a minute, what exactly is a sea turtle tag?

 

CLAIRE:  Well, there are many types of tags that can be placed on a sea turtle. One of the most common methods is an external flipper tag. It can be composed of special plastics or metals designed to hold up in the harsh elements of the ocean. They are inscribed with a unique code that identifies individual turtles, so that researchers can monitor their movements when they are found again. In addition to this code, they normally have a return address to aid in the process of figuring out where the turtle came from. Flipper tags are one of the most effective forms of identifying individual sea turtles, usually lasting a few years, sometimes even decades!

 

ANNA: In combination with flipper tags, in the 1990s, sea turtle researchers began using PIT tags, short for Passive Integrated Transponder. These tags are sealed in glass and passively transmit a unique ID number when scanned to help keep track of individual turtles. PIT tags are injected into muscle tissue such as the shoulder of the turtle where it should remain permanently, making loss or damage highly unlikely and allowing researchers to collect data for decades.

However, scanners for PIT tags are expensive, meaning that under-resourced facilities can have trouble participating in collecting and managing them. Along the east coast of the US, there are more than 5,000 volunteers working on sea turtle projects, yet there are no more than a few dozen scanners that are shared among them.

KENDRA: What if I wanted to see where a sea turtle went as it was swimming over a long period of time?

 

CLAIRE: Well, Kendra in that case you would want to use a telemetry tag, such as a satellite tag. Though they only last a few months to less than 2 years, these tags transmit the turtle’s location to a satellite network when the turtle comes up for a breath. The signal provides the satellite with its GPS coordinates, allowing researchers to track a turtle’s journey. Satellite tags are normally attached to the turtles’ carapace and can give a variety of info including temperature, depth, dive profiles, speed, and more! This type of tagging has become more advanced and reliable as time goes on. However, they are still prone to loss and remain expensive, often costing thousands of dollars.

 

KENDRA: Great! So we have these awesome devices that we can use to track and collect valuable data on sea turtles… but what do we do with all that data? Where does all that information go?

 

ANNA: And here’s where databases come into play! Databases allow researchers to log turtles they tag or inquire about certain tagged turtles they come across, and they normally encompass a certain area. There are many that exist, but we are going to describe some of the main databases used.

 

CLAIRE: Located in Gainesville, Florida, one institution working towards centralization of data is the Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research at the University of Florida. Their Cooperative Marine Turtle Tagging Program, or CMTTP, allows researchers to submit sea turtle tag information through a comprehensive Excel template. The data fields include date, location (latitude and longitude), species, research type and project description, whether this was a new or recaptured turtle, PIT Tag #, if there were any existing tags, measurements, and release information – all of which are standardized.

 

The Archie Carr Center provides tags at cost to research centers across the Western Atlantic and beyond who then send their data back to be accessed by the regional community.

 

KENDRA: We had the opportunity to speak with Joe Pfaller, who completed his PhD with the Archie Carr Center and now works for the Caretta Research Project, which protects and studies nesting loggerheads on Wassaw Island in Georgia.

 

*MUSIC TRANSITION*

 

CLAIRE: Hi Joe, thanks for talking with us! How have methods of data collection and management changed since the founding of the Caretta Research Project? How have you streamlined those processes over time?

 

JOE: 5:33 – 6:27: “When the current research director, or executive director, started with Caretta Research Project in the mid 90s, nothing was electronic, so they had everything on mostly data sheets, some napkins, some cigarette cartons. There was data written all over the place that she took the time to put it into an electronic database. And since the mid-90s we’ve continuously refined our data collection procedures and also data checks and making increasing rigor throughout the years. So right now we have a much more standardized and rigorous data collection process. Which I think has helped us to better identify what real changes are happening versus what methodological changes are happening.”

 

CLAIRE: Oh wow, it seems like electronic data collection made for a much more streamlined system! I was reading that the tags distributed by the Archie Carr Center all have the same return address on the back which is the University of Florida. Wouldn’t that make for some confusion?

 

JOE: 8:26 – 10:05“Not so much in terms of confusion on who tagged it. So the Archie Carr Center – it’s great to have everything centralized because they know who gets what sets of tags. So the tags that we use are called Inconel tags – that’s the type of metal – they’re non-corrosive tags. Each tag has a unique letter-number combination and each one has the address on the back. So when we buy our tags from the Archie Carr Center, they know exactly which sets of tags we get. They know what set of tags the people down at Jekyll island, who also tag turtles, get. So by having one central hub for who is sending out those tags, they know what sets people have and at the end of the year we send them our data telling them which turtles we tagged with what tags. And so they have everything in a centralized database. We have our own database, but they have all the tags that went out. So, they are able to log in every turtle that they know got a tag.

Whether they got new tags or have their old tags. And if we have a turtle that comes up that has tags that we don’t recognize, that aren’t in our database, then we can send an email to the Archie Carr Center and they will say oh that tag is from Jekyll, here is the capture history and here is the contact person at Jekyll Island who can give you more information about where and when that tag was attached. So we can really, basically every tag that we get can be locked back to an individual female.”

 

ANNA: Interesting! It sounds like the Archie Carr Center tries to make it easy for researchers in the US to stay in touch and work together.

 

KENDRA: The Archie Carr Center is region-specific right? Are there any similar databases for other parts of the world?

 

CLAIRE: I think Anna was talking about another database the other day!

 

ANNA: Yes I was! The Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network, or Widecast, maintains a database that offers similar services as the Archie Carr database that Claire just described. The main goals of the database are to support larger scale population monitoring studies by facilitating communication across regions involved in sea turtle tagging. The database allows users to create projects and record data for different sea turtle “events” such as nesting, stranding, capture, sighting or hatching. Datasheets include tags, identification information, location, conditions and event specific details with every entry. Much like the Archie Carr database, Widecast software and data entry are accessible to researchers hoping to use regional data for specific studies. The database has certain features such as the ability to export data in different, simpler formats that contribute to a more user friendly system but this database is not meant for citizen scientists or the public.

 

KENDRA: That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for collaboration though!

 

ANNA: That’s true! In the name of collaboration, the program allows researchers to search for and even contribute to all the records in the system.

 

CLAIRE: Widecast is an interesting example of data management methods and issues in the world of sea turtle tagging! The Widecast manual seems to push for the use of collaborative features and share or contribute to data to be used by researchers over a large geographic range.

 

ANNA: Both the Archie Carr center and Widecast are focused on the Western hemisphere. Is there anyone tagging turtles on the other side of the world?

 

KENDRA: Yes, Anna there is! When it comes to the Indian Ocean and South-East Asia, the IOSEA Marine Turtle Memorandum of Understanding (or MOU for short) is a regional framework of governmental and nongovernmental organizations dedicated to the conservation of sea turtles in that part of the world. The IOSEA headquarters keeps a list of flipper tag series online. It is currently updated and simply lists out the tag series, the model, the country of origin, the date the tag was applied, the responsible agency, and the contact information. Occasionally, there are some tags on the list that may not have a responsible agency and/or contact information.

 

CLAIRE: Woah, that was a lot of info! It seems to me that these three databases are all working towards the same goal of allowing researchers to collaborate and share their data. But wait, don’t sea turtles migrate long distances? What if a turtle swims out of the region where its tagging data are stored and into another area with an entirely separate database?

 

ANNA: You’ve just uncovered what some see as an obstacle in sea turtle tagging and research worldwide. Some researchers feel that there should be a database that works on a global scale, as it would provide a more centralized system. However, some scientists are content with the current database infrastructure that exists. Joe Pfaller best explains why:

 

JOE: 10:35-12:03: “Well, a global database wouldn’t do a whole lot because you know like loggerheads in the northwest Atlantic don’t leave the North Atlantic. So, I mean would somebody in Australia wouldn’t care about what tags we have and we don’t care what tags the turtles in Australia have ’cause we’re never gonna see those ones right? Absolutely having everybody in communication with respect to the tags within a region is really important, and so, most projects that tag in the United states are in the same system, and they get their tags from the Archie Carr center. I mean everybody is in communication, even if the tags aren’t being distributed by one group. You know, if I was to find a loggerhead on Wassaw that had a weird tag and Archie carr didn’t know, we could send an email out to the Cturtle listserv, and if somebody tagged it in Belize then we would know they would say, “Oh yeah that’s just a tag that I put on.” And everybody would be in communication. Now, there’s not a centralized database for that kind of stuff. There are people that hold some of their data tight and don’t wanna put it out there on a big database, but I think that’s absolutely a need for that.”

 

JOE: 23:40 – 24:05: “In an educational sense I think it would be neat to have all the tags in a certain place. You’d have to have buy-in from a lot of entities to have a truly global picture.

Because you’d want to have a data-sharing agreement in place that shows that here’s what we’re going to use it for and here’s what we’re not going to use it for. The data we collect, it is also our livelihoods.”

 

KENDRA: That’s a good point! In the sea turtle world, it sounds like sharing data can sometimes be tricky.

 

CLAIRE: Yeah! And his point about turtles staying within their regions is certainly interesting! Maybe there needs to be more of an emphasis on centralizing regional databases rather than having one global database?

 

ANNA: Hmm, I wonder if most people in the sea turtle community agree with that. I think I’ve heard of a company trying to make a global database for tagging. I can’t seem to remember the name…

 

KENDRA: Yeah, I heard about that too! The company’s name is Biomark! They’re “a worldwide supplier of electronic identification and related monitoring systems to the fish and wildlife conservation communities and aquaculture industry.” Biomark makes and sells PIT tags – in fact, Joe uses Biomark tags with the Caretta Research Project. In 2020, Biomark, in collaboration with

 

the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Florida, launched a global database to connect scientists and allow them to exchange tagging and sighting information. In addition to Biomark’s PIT tags, this network would allow entry of data from PIT tags made by other brands, flipper tags, satellite tags, and more! Their goal is to provide researchers access to a central database where they have control over what to share to others.

 

CLAIRE: In order to learn more about the uses for a global sea turtle database, as well as the efforts of Biomark, we talked to Justin Perrault, the director of research at Loggerhead Marine Life Center in Juno Beach, Florida.

 

*MUSIC TRANSITION*

 

ANNA: Do you think there would be a use for a larger, more centralized global database or system that would unify the sea turtle community across regions when it comes to data?

 

JUSTIN: 10:17 – 12:37 You hit the nail on the head. So actually a couple years ago, we tried to work with our friends at Biomark who develop all the PIT tags. They’re actually a Merck company now, but we actually worked with them to develop a global database for sea turtle tags that would be a voluntary contribution. If people wanted to give their data and it still would’ve all been proprietary and owned by the individuals that provided the data. And then you could set limitations on searching and we even developed the database and sent it out to the sea turtle Listserv and had a call with… I believe there were like a hundred people on the call, kind of just surveying and seeing if people would think it was useful. And generally the answers were yes.

I think, no offense to anybody, but I think those of the younger ones on the call were the ones that were really gung-ho about this idea. And some of the individuals that are a little bit more old school were a little bit apprehensive about it because they thought the Excel database was fine, which it does work, but there could be something more formal that was developed.

Unfortunately, the project never made it to fruition. It ended up kind of fizzling out, and there were some cost issues and things like that, but we’ve already kind of done the groundwork on this and there was an interest in a system like that, and I think it would be so much easier to just be able to type in a website and type in your tag number, and it could have just been like contact this person for more information. I wouldn’t even have to give you any of the more sensitive information about the animal. So, yes, the long-winded answer to your question is yes, there would be an extreme use for something like that. If somebody can figure out how to do it, you know, the problem is a lot of these cloud systems and things, they cost money. And so that’s where some of the issues come, is who’s gonna pay for it.

 

ANNA: Wow, I didn’t realize how complicated this was! Would a global database be worth the trouble? What would it add to the sea turtle community?

 

JUSTIN: 13:13 – 14:08 I think it would just improve on the kind of interconnectivity of all the researchers across the world. I think something like that would… you know, we do have email, and we do have phones and things like that, but sometimes it’s a battle tracking some of these turtles down. Like there’s some turtles where it takes us six months to a year to figure out where she came from. ‘Cause sometimes we’ve got nesting females that come up on our beach that were tagged as juveniles in the Bahamas, you know? So I think it would just really improve on communication efforts, and overall our goal as sea turtle researchers and conservationists is to talk to each other and collaborate and protect these animals. And the best way to do that is if you’re all talking to each other, and I think a centralized global database would absolutely do that.

 

*MUSIC TRANSITION*

 

CLAIRE: So, it sounds like a good portion of people want a global sea turtle database but finding funding stands in the way of making that a reality.

 

ANNA: I don’t know… there are plenty of people out there that don’t see the need. When we got Joe Pfaller’s opinion on data management, it seemed like a regional database system would be more helpful.

 

KENDRA: Well, let’s think about databases logistically. Most species of turtles stay within their broader region. In the case of Joe and his loggerheads, that would be the North Atlantic. It wouldn’t benefit Joe much to know about the patterns of loggerheads that nest in South Africa. And as Justin mentioned, getting up a database of this scale would require coordination from A LOT of different entities, and it’s not as easy as it sounds! We need to consider who would pay to construct and maintain such a comprehensive database. People in the sea turtle community have enough on their hands as is.

 

ANNA: You’re right, Kendra. Getting a database of this scale up and running would be a big task to accomplish, and logistics are certainly something to keep in mind. But Justin also said that in the end, it would help everyone if you could immediately search for a tag in one place and find the information about where and when it was originally found.

 

CLAIRE: That’s so true – we could eliminate the step of sending an email to the Archie Carr center or other researchers–essentially we could get rid of the middle man. Of course, said global database would need to have data privacy agreements in order to ensure that the collaboration benefits both the researcher and outside parties.

 

KENDRA: Okay, okay, these databases, and even the prospect of global interconnectedness, have offered a lot of options that collect and manage traditional tagging data. But what if I told you that there was a new alternative being developed?

 

ANNA: That sounds pretty great! Tell me more.

 

KENDRA: We talked to Stephen Dunbar, a researcher within the sea turtle community and a professor at Loma Linda University, who in 2016 developed an app with his PhD student to identify turtles based on photos submitted by citizen scientists:

 

*MUSIC TRANSITION*

 

CLAIRE: Can you tell us about your photo ID app TURT?

 

STEVE: –5:31-6:01 “We together developed a concept and the idea to come up with this global sea turtle sightings app which we called turtles uniting researchers and tourists, the acronym of which is TURT. So TURT was the very first global sea turtle sightings app for non-scientists.” STEVE: –14:15-14:51 “So essentially because through the TURT app or through the web-based map people are required to submit photographs we basically can then shut those photographs into our photo ID system, computerized photo ID system and identify the same individual at different dive sites over years of time, and therefore we can just basically connect those locations with a polygon and come up with a home range of an individual turtle.”

STEVE: –22:47-24:16 “One of our motivations for setting up the TURT app was really to engage community scientists, citizen scientists to upload records of their sightings during diving for instance or in places where turtles might be nesting. The idea for this was really to begin to see where people were seeing turtles, and there was little or no actual research going on in those locations. So the point of that was that we could be looking at a map of global sighting and be able to say, “Hey, people are seeing turtles both in the water and nesting in location X and we don’t have any researchers that are working in location X or working near that location and so the idea was then to be able to generate interest by researchers to go to location X and start conservation research on sea turtles where there hadn’t been prior to the data generated by the TURT app.”

 

CLAIRE: Since the public can contribute information to the platform, how much data are they able to view? What is reserved for the sake of privacy?

 

STEVE: 15:42-17:16 “There’s no real central database. We essentially hold the database because of data privacy issues, so obviously people that are using the TURT app don’t necessarily want to have all of their data public, and that’s for two main reasons. For scientific reasons, sometimes they want to hold that data so that they can publish information, and it’s not

 

taken from them and published by someone else, you know, a generalized publication about turtle locations. Another important aspect of that privacy is that many locations and studies don’t necessarily want to have the exact location of turtles known to, for instance, local fishers or local communities that are still harvesting and illegally capturing sea turtles through direct take. So that’s one of the reasons we don’t necessarily make everything open to the public, but each location will have their own map that they can manage and use within their national or local context with their communities or with that they work with.”

 

CLAIRE: Ah, that makes a lot of sense! I can see how people can be hesitant to share their data when their research is so important to them. I’ve heard stories of people mining databases and using that data without permission to publish papers or get grants. And with the added layer of people possibly using the locations of turtles to harvest them, data privacy seems essential to take into consideration. So, we won’t take any more of your time, but would you say this type of photo ID system is the future of global sea turtle databases?

 

STEVE: 24:47-27:01 “I think that there is certainly great potential for increasing the numbers of observations that can be made. [CUT] This kind of photo ID system, I think, could be very valuable in not only directing us to places where this kind of research is not being done, but also can give us insights into new aspects of sea turtle biology and movements and life cycles that we haven’t had by limited observations by scientists. So I think engaging citizen scientists, community scientists is really an important aspect of the future of biodiversity research. The more eyes we have in the field, the more boots on the ground, the more hands and feet in the field, obviously the more information that we can gather. And of course, as we gather information that really does allow us to expand our understanding of sea turtles, of marine habitats, of other marine organisms that we have an interest in the conservation of their ecosystems as well as individual species. So I think those are really important aspects for the future.”

 

CLAIRE: It seems like the TURT app provides a great way for citizen scientists to get involved in sea turtle conservation and contribute to research by reporting sightings and submitting photos. In order to elevate sea turtle populations to a semblance of their past levels, researchers need as much information as possible. One picture may seem like a small contribution, but when we put them all together it brings us closer to saving these endangered species.

 

*MUSIC TRANSITION*

 

KENDRA: So, you may be wondering, what’s next for the sea turtle community? Unfortunately, there is no magical quick fix to these complicated management issues. Sorry!

 

CLAIRE: Today, we have only discussed databases centered around flipper and PIT tags. Research that uses satellite tracking can provide even more information about the patterns of these species. In collaboration, SWOT (short for the State of the World’s Sea Turtles) and OBIS-Seamap, a project within Duke’s Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab, formed a global database/mapping application which details nesting locations and satellite telemetry data. They

collect data from over 550 researchers and projects, exemplifying the collaboration that could be applied to a database involving flipper and PIT tags.

 

KENDRA: Many satellite tagging databases are even collaborating with outside parties working on tracking other large marine animals such as whales, dolphins and sea birds in order to provide researchers with a more comprehensive view of regions they’re working within. This

all-encompassing data can help inform conservation policies and what marine areas to more heavily protect.

 

CLAIRE: What exactly do we need to be protecting against in the case of sea turtles?

 

ANNA: Well, sea turtles face so many problems presently, and possibly even more in the future. Bycatch, climate change, pollution, habitat encroachment, unsustainable or illegal harvest, decline of food sources… I could probably go on all day. But don’t get discouraged! There are amazing people out there like Joe Pfaller, Justin Perrault, and Stephen Dunbar who are incredibly dedicated to their work and are constantly advocating for sea turtle conservation.

 

CLAIRE: No matter the varying opinions on what data collection and centralization should look like within the sea turtle community, every single researcher just wants the best for this endangered animal. The need for progress and creative solutions is something everyone can agree on.

 

*MUSIC BREAK- Oyster Waltz by Joe Morton*

 

KENDRA: Thanks for listening to the “Sea Turtle Tagging Databases and Management” episode of Seas the Day. We hope you learned something about sea turtle tagging and data management. Knowledge of this topic is very important to conserving these incredible animals, so please, feel free to share what you learned with a family member, friend, or coworker.

 

CLAIRE: This episode was written and produced by me, Claire Helgerson, Kendra Rentz, and Anna de Hostos. For more about this episode, visit our website at sites.nicholas.duke.edu/seastheday. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter or Instagram @seasthedaypod. Thanks again, and we’ll SEA you next time!

 

 

Bibliography and Links 

Factors to Consider in the Tagging of Sea Turtles by George H. Balazs 1999 

Biomark Launches Open Access, Sea Turtle Tagging Database 2020  

Troubling issues at the frontier of animal tracking for conservation and management by Steven Cooke 2017 

Considering the fate of electronic tags: interaction with stakeholders and user responsibility when encountering tagged aquatic animals by Neil Hammerschlag 2014 

The Internet of Turtles by Aimee Leslie 2016 

SeaTurtle.org PIT Tags (online database) 

Tagging Efforts for Sea Turtle Research (from NOAA-National Marine Fisheries Service) 

The Importance of PIT Tags for Measuring Life History of Sea Turtles by Lucy Omeyer 2019 

Factors Affecting the Retention of Metal Tags on Sea Turtles by George H. Balazs 1982 

Evaluating potential tagging effects on leatherback sea turtles by Sherrill-Mix, 2007 

Satellite tagging of rehabilitated green sea turtles Chelonia mydas from the United Arab Emirates, including the longest tracked journey for the species by David Robinson, 2019 

Effect of tagging marine turtles on nesting behavior and reproductive success by Annette Broderick, 1999 

Widecast.org and Widecast User Manual 2008 

Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research (tagging program and database) 

A strategy to conserve and manage the Sea Turtle Resources of Western Indian Ocean by Jeanne Mortimer 2002 

Identifying Sea Turtle Home Ranges Utilizing Citizen-science Data from Novel Web-based and Smartphone Gis Applications by Dustin Baumbach 2019 

HotSpotter: Using a computer-driven photo-id application to identify sea turtles by Stephen Dunbar 2021 

OBIS-SeaMap by Pat Halpin 2009 

IOSEA Marine Turtles (sea turtle tagging database from the Indian Ocean South-East Asia region) 

Biomark (distributor of PIT tags for sea turtles and other animals)