Meet McDowell

Editor’s Note: In 2022, the STPS Board of Directors provided funding for satellite transmitters for Dean Bagley, a researcher with the University of Central Florida’s Marine Turtle Research Group. STPS has supported Bagley’s work researching male green sea turtles for several years. She has been providing periodic updates to STPS as she tracks the turtles.

By DEAN BAGLEY

UCF Marine Turtle Research Group Researcher

August 5, 2023

I’ve waited (somewhat impatiently) for the magical phone call from Inwater Research Group that they’d captured their third male. That call came yesterday just a few minutes after noon. I left immediately. Janet Hochella met me there and we were able to attach the transmitter to McDowell, a beautiful 94cm male green turtle. This completed the three names we chose to honor our late, great Doc Ehrhart…. Llewellyn McDowell Ehrhart. (My one remaining tag is destined to be named “Rattlesnake” for Doc’s self-imposed nickname.) I’ve created the live map so that you can follow his migration. McDowell began swimming south shortly after release and was approaching the Jensen Beach Causeway at 5:35 this morning. His map can be found at this link:

McDowell Live Map

I’ve changed the maps to include new locations every four hours. Be sure to check in to watch McDowell’s migration. It’s the first time we’ve been able to watch this live! Once you access the map you can zoom in and out, and by clicking “satellite” you can add or remove labels (cities, roads, etc.). Clicking anywhere on the track will show you the deploy start and last location. To remove those boxes, click “see all” next to deployments in the menu on the right. All times are in UTC/GMT so you have to subtract four hours to be in our time zone. For instance, McDowell’s current map says that his last location was at 09:35 on August 5th. That means it was 05:35 AM here on the east coast. All times are shown in military time. And you can watch for the announcement on the UCF Marine Turtle Research Facebook page.