In late 2006 Brevard Zoo allocated $2,500 to assist the Inwater Research Group in their research efforts. Recently founding member Dean Bagley contacted us with this update from the field.

Voices From The Field
Name: Dean Bagley Nationality: US
Name of Project: Inwater Research Group – Sea Turtle Research
Geographic Location of Project: Key West, Florida

Greetings from the sunny Key West National Wildlife Refuge and Marquesas Islands! The Inwater Research Group began working in this area in 2002 and found a huge aggregation of adult and subadult green turtles residing west of the Marquesas in 2004. The goal for this trip is to be able to capture four of these larger green turtles and to attach GPS satellite tags to these individuals.

The first day was spent entirely inside the ring of mangrove islands known as the Marquesas where we caught six loggerheads and two juvenile green turtles. The next two days we ventured west of the Marquesas to an area where we found the large green turtles. It took a lot of effort as tides were higher than normal, but we captured two male green turtles and one female before the conditions changed and we could no longer work in this area. All three animals were fitted with satellite transmitters and released. We are hoping that the precision of the GPS units will help us better understand the daily movements of these green turtles. We know where they forage by day, but do not yet know where they sleep at night.

The remaining two days was spent catching turtles in other areas of the Key West NWR. We sighted three hawksbills in an area we had not surveyed previously and we will be investigating further on future trips. Over the five-day period we captured 21 loggerheads and 14 green turtles. So much of what we do would not be possible without the support of entities like the Brevard Zoo. Many thanks!