Skeeter

Conservancy of SW Florida Keewaydin Island Turtle Tracking Project

A project of Conservancy of SW Florida Keewaydin Island Turtle Tracking Project.

click map for full-size version Skeeter (Loggerhead) is 81 km SE of the coast of The Bahamas and 201 km from Nassau

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Species: Loggerhead
Life Stage: Adult
Gender: Female
Release Date: 2011-07-12 03:00:00
Release Location: Keewaydin Island
Last Location: 2012-05-16 19:37:46

Background

As far as we could tell, Skeeter was a first-time visitor to Keewaydin Island; no flipper tags or scars, no PIT tag chip. She certainly picked a very humid, breathless night for her first known visit. The only island residents who seemed to be enjoying the climatic conditions were the island's black salt marsh mosquitoes. They were out in force even by Keewaydin's absurdly high standards. Consequently, the name Skeeter sounded about right to us. Skeeter is a reasonably large loggerhead (SCL 95.5 cm, head width 21.9 cm) so she's been out and about for quite a few years now. Her carapace wasn't toting around very much in the way of epibionts so we decided to outfit this late-season nester with a satellite tag and see where she goes. We're confident she will tell us an interesting story.

Update on Skeeter:

We documented two of Skeeter's nests this summer. The first of these nests hatched on September 12. It contained 138 eggs. Not as many of them hatched as we'd hoped, but still it resulted in 77 little loggerheads reaching Gulf waters. Her second nest is due to hatch shortly. As of September 26, Skeeter appeared to have settled into the same general foraging area south of Andros Island as did her sister loggerheads; Emily, Hermione and Lindsay.

We would not have been able to document this phase of Skeeter’s life without donations from Conservancy members and grant support from the Marine Turtle Grants Program, which is ably administered by The Sea Turtle Conservancy. We are more appreciative of all your support!