Hope for Nature
Hope for Nature is the second loggerhead tagged in our study of turtles feeding on discarded fishery byproducts, such as lobster carcasses and conch shells thrown overboard while fishermen are cleaning their catch at anchor at the end of each day.
Remember each turtle has a specific diet and in Belize loggerheads eat crustaceans and mollusks, while hawksbills eat sponges and greens eat grass. The loggerhead sea turtles have learned to locate the sailboat and feed on the discarded scraps. What cues are they following to find the fishing boats? What is the range of these loggerheads that forage inside the reef on fishery byproducts? These are some of the questions we hope to answer as we tag loggerhead turtles foraging on scraps of lobster and conch. Note: In the map below, it is likely that the points far astray from the others are no good.
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