Survival of Pelagic Juvenile Loggerhead Turtles in the Open Ocean

• Published in: The Journal of Wildlife Management
• Main Authors: SASSO, CHRISTOPHER R., EPPERLY, SHERYAN P.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2007
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.2193/2006-448; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.2193%2F2006-448

Abstract: We deployed pop‐up archival transmitting tags on 15 loggerhead sea turtles ( Caretta caretta ) that had been lightly hooked in the United States pelagic longline fishery and on 10 loggerheads that we dip‐netted off the surface to serve as controls in the North Atlantic Ocean. We received data from tags of 10 lightly hooked turtles and 7 control turtles. We used data transmitted by the tags in a known‐fate model to estimate annual survival rates and determine if there were differences in survival between the 2 groups. The best model indicates there is no difference in survival between the lightly hooked and control turtles, and the estimated annual survival rate was 0.814 (95% CI = 0.557‐0.939). Our results suggest that when all fishing gear is removed lightly hooked turtles may not suffer any additional mortality relative to control turtles.