A female leatherback sea turtle named Panama Jackie is seen nesting on Soropta Beach, Panama, at night. The turtle was then fitted with a transmitter and has logged more than 7,000 miles since.
Panama Jackie is a female leatherback sea turtle who was fitted with a satellite transmitter in May, 2013 after nesting at Soropta Beach, Panama. During the year that she has worn her transmitter, Panama Jackie has logged well over 7,000 miles of travel. She has spent much of that time in the Gulf of Mexico, in the shallow waters off the coastlines of Mexico, Texas and Florida.
The east coast of Florida is a popular nesting site for leatherbacks, especially between Brevard and Broward counties. But when Panama Jackie is ready to nest again, she will return to Panama.
The small stretch of sand called Soropta Beach is only about four miles long, but it still hosts more than 600 leatherback nests per year. According to the Sea Turtle Conservancy, until some 10 years ago, almost 100 percent of the eggs from nesting turtles were stolen from that beach. Even more disturbing, each year a significant number of nesting leatherbacks were killed so their flippers could be harvested.
Staff, volunteers, public education, conservation programs and other measures have now virtually eliminated egg poaching at Soropta Beach, while nesting by leatherbacks has grown from around 450 nests per year (2002) to an astounding 675 (2010).
Panama Jackie will be the last turtle featured in our Turtle Talk series. We hope you have enjoyed meeting and learning about The Sea Turtle Conservancy’s satellite-tracking program (www.conserveturtles.org) and about the turtles adopted by The News-Journal for local classrooms. The entire series of articles is available online at www.nieworld.com.
— Kris Sternberg