Long-term In-water Recaptures of Adult Black Turtles (Chelonia mydas) Provide Implications for Flipper Tagging Methods in the Eastern Pacific

摘要

Black Turtles, also known as Eastern Pacific Green Turtles (Chelonia mydas), are generally confined to the Eastern Pacific. This population is composed of three major nesting rookeries located in Colola, Mexico, the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador and Costa Rica (Seminoff et al. 2015). At the largest rookery at Colola Beach, Mexico, more than 18,000 adult females have been flipper tagged since 1983 (Delgado-Trejo 2002). Flipper tag returns, satellite tracking data and genetic studies show that Black Turtles 2from Colola Beach are found from San Diego Bay (USA) to Central and South America (Alvarado and Figueroa 1992; Byles et al. 1995; Lemons et al. 2011; Hart et al. 2015; Chaves et al. 2017).