BIO

Hello, my name is Julieta Flores, and I am a second-year student at FSU studying Biological Sciences because I want to become a veterinarian. Florida contains 5 out of the 7 turtle species; however, Florida is known for its high boat traffic, which has resulted in high rates of sea turtle strandings due to vessel strikes. That is why we wanted to evaluate the ability of turtles in avoiding vessels as well as the behavioral responses to try reducing collision risk, so we came up with this research study.

A Preliminary Analysis of Marine Turtle Behavioral Response to Vessel Approach during Transect Surveys

Abstract

Marine turtles often occur in areas that are characterized by high-frequency and high-speed boating activity. This is of conservation concern due to growing evidence for the interactions between marine turtles and vessels and consequent impacts. It is important to understand how turtles respond to vessels because we can use it to develop regulations to reduce disturbances caused by vessels that affect the natural behavior of marine turtles to preserve marine life. In this study, we leveraged the data obtained from the drone footage of the transect surveys to examine the fine-scale behavioral response of turtles to vessel presence. We watched 66 hours of footage and identified just four occurrences of marine turtles of three species (Chelonia mydas, Caretta caretta, and Lepidochelys kempii) during our drone transects. Preliminary results indicate that the behavioral responses of turtles to vessels varied; while some individuals displayed evasive behavior (e.g., displacement or direction change), other individuals showed no behavioral response to the vessel approach. With additional data from more individual turtles, the true variation of behavioral response of marine turtles to vessels can be determined. Ultimately, this data can be incorporated as an additional covariate into models of marine turtle abundance and density from drone surveys. Nevertheless, for further conclusions on the fine-scale behavioral response of turtles to vessel approach, additional survey methods such as biologgers should be employed because they can collect data on the behavior of turtles to aim for a better solution to minimize the impacts of vessel traffic on turtles.

Keywords: marine turtles, vessel strike, behavior, marine conservation