Turtle Tracking

Track all Hawksbill Hope and Marymount University tagged turtles here: http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/index.shtml?project_id=650

“The actual tagging is very exciting to see. Once the sea turtle calmed down it allows the students to touch her shell and feel her flippers. It was amazing to see these huge creatures so close up.”
-Katherine Sanchez summer 2017

Hawksbill Hope, through individual contributions and grant funding, will be able to satellite tag marine sea turtles during the nesting season in Belize. Mk10-AF tags, costing $5,000 U.S. each, are providing important real-time tracking data for the endangered Hawksbill Turtles. The tags deployed by Dr. Rimkus, with the help of Gales Point local Kevin Andrewin and Marymount students enrolled in his study abroad marine biology class, are currently tracking the Hawksbill turtles.

Each time the turtles surface the tag transmits using the Argos system consisting of data acquisition and relay equipment attached to the NOAA low-orbiting weather satellites and ground-based receivers and data processing systems. The Argos satellite equipment records the transmissions being transmitted from the turtle’s tag and later downloads this data back to earth. Service Argos, the organization, which administers the Argos system, then processes this data and determines positions. Data and the Argos-calculated locations of Hawksbill turtles are made available via the Internet. Wildlife Computers supplies analysis programs to help decode, format and interpret the Argos-relayed data.

Transmissions from each of Hawksbill Hope Foundation’s deployed satellite tags can be seen here, courtesy of seaturtle.org

“I found it very encouraging to see young people from the village and surrounding community volunteering their time and energy to participate in beach clean-up projects as well as patrolling the shores to locate nesting sea turtles.” – Kristin Gogal, Summer 2013