Jack and Apollo Making Tracks

By Dean Bagley, UCF Marine Turtle Research Group

Modified by Susan Skinner, STPS Director of Communications

Jack and Apollo are still here, and have covered a bit of ground since the previous maps. It took longer than expected to get the little glitches out of the maps, but Wildlife Computers figured it out.

Jack was deployed on May 25, 2019. On that day, he swam north to the north end of Patrick AFB before coming closer to shore (maybe because that’s where the females are?) and working his way south again. These are darker green dots on the map. As he swam further south, the dots turned from dark to light green where he turned around just north of Sebastian Inlet on May 29. He spent the next three to four days moving slowly north, with the dots turning to yellow. Then he moved further offshore, and the dots turned to orange and then to red as he headed north again and up off Patrick AFB (Red areas are the most recent locations.). He made it to the south side of the Trident submarine turning basin on the south side of the Cape and turned abruptly southeast on June 9. His last location was at 9:01 p.m. on June 9, 2019.

Apollo was deployed on May 28, 2019, and went immediately north upon release. He swam directly to the Cape (dark green dots) where he remained until June 4 (with light green and yellow dots), when he began making his way back south along shore (in orange and then red orange and finally red dots, turning around south of Sebastian Inlet on June 10 and heading back north again (all red dots) until his last hit was directly opposite his deployment location at 4:51 p.m. on June 10, 2019.

Thanks to you all for making this possible!