Milika - Post nesting movements of olive ridley turtles in Australia, 2004
A project of WWF Australia.
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Virtually from the moment Milika left the beach after nesting on Cape Van Diemen, she set a course for the Kimberley Coast of Western Australia. Milika had either only nested once this year on was on her last nesting for the season because as soon as she left the beach she was heading home. Her south west track across Joseph Bonaparte Gulf barely deviated along the 390 km journey which indicated that she knew exactly where she was going. At the moment she is located about 60 km from the Kimberley Coast and is in water about 60 m deep. In her journey, Milika by-passed an infamous feeding ground at Fog Bay, 50 km west of Darwin, where in 1992 over 200 olive ridley turtles were killed by incidental capture in a shark fishing net.
Background
"Milika" was the first turtle in this project to be fitted with a transmitter and was named by the Milikapiti School at Snake Bay on Melville Island. The students decided upon the name "Milika" because in Tiwi language it means "the sea around our islands". Milika's transmitter was attached on 19 April when she nested on Cape Van Dieman on Melville Island at the top of Aspley Strait.
Milika is the largest of the five turtles at 75.2 cm in curved carapace (shell) length and the heaviest at 43 kg. Milikapiti (Snake Bay) has a population of approximatley 400 people and is located on the northern coast of Melville Island.
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- For more information please visit the project website.
- This map connects positions generated by the ARGOS system designated as location class (lc) '3', '2', '1', '0', 'A', 'B'. Locations that have been "filtered" are displayed as small red dots.
- This maps also shows locations of class 'Z' as small black dots which are not connected by a route line.
- Bathymetry layers are derived from the GEBCO One Minute Grid.
- Sea surface temperature and chlorophyll are derived from NASA's Ocean Color data.
- Ocean currents and sea surface heights are derived from AVISO's Ssalto/Duacs Gridded Absolute Dynamic Topography & absolute geostrophic velocities data.
