U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
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On August 13 1998, researcher Dr. Dave Nelson, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Waterways Experiment Station, attached a satellite transmitter to the back of a subadult loggerhead sea turtle named Perdida, meaning lost in Spanish. Perdida was recovering from "cold stunning", which is similar to hypothermia, at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland. Staff and volunteers from the Aquarium's Marine Animal Rescue Program have cared for the turtle since it was brought to the Aquarium in October, 1997. Perdida was released from Assateague Island, Maryland on the morning of August 14. The juvenile loggerhead weighed around 50 kg and measured 74.8 cm long.
For more information on sea turtles, check out the Sea Turtles Information section of our website.
Please note that we do not receive position points for tracked turtles every day. Position points are provide to STSL by researchers and are posted on the maps as soon as STSL receives them. There may be times during the study when there are no new points for several weeks. This is most likely the result of the sea turtle not staying at the surface long enough for the transmitter to be picked up by satellites. It takes several satellites to pick up the location of a transmitter and the transmitter antenna needs to be out of the water long enough for the satellites to pick up the signal.
We will continue to get position points on many of the sea turtles in the program (click here to find a list of other sea turtles being tracked) and we will post new positions as soon as we receive them. For more background information on satellite tracking technology, click here.
Funding for the project was provided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Locations were provided by Dr. Dave Nelson (Environmental Laboratory, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Waterways Experiment Station). Maps created by the Sea Turtle Survival League. For more information on the Baltimore Aquarium's Marine Animal Rescue Program, click here.
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