Where are Everett and Peter?

Editor’s Note: This year, the STPS Board of Directors has funded two 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. This year, the board has named the two male green sea turtles being tracked with the satellite transmitters. The first is named Everett, in honor of longtime STPS volunteer Everett Tindall who turned 91 in June. The second turtle has been named Peter, in honor of STPS founder Peter Bandre and the 35^th anniversary of the organization in 2021. Dean Bagley will provide periodic updates to STPS as she tracks the turtles this summer.

By DEAN BAGLEY

UCF Marine Turtle Research Group researcher

The most recent update shows that both turtles have moved around quite a bit in their respective areas, so I’ve again sent closeup views.
Everett remained in the last location for about 11 hours before moving north along the west side, spent a little time there before continuing on to the NE corner and then back down into the cluster of hits in his foraging area. The more recent locations are sometimes hidden by the earlier ones. Remember the most recent locations are bright red. As they get older, they become more red-orange, then orange, yellow-orange, yellow, yellow-green, green and the oldest locations are dark green. The colors change over time to reflect the most recent 1 to 1 1/2 weeks in red. The oldest locations showing in Everett’s map are the green dots from July 8 as he was nearing the east side of the Marquesas. His most recent location is the red dot immediately to the left of the “8” in the date.

Peter is still in the same general area, but as you can see from the bright red hits, he has moved around a bit from the edge of the deeper water of Hawk’s Channel out to the edge of the reef and back. His most recent location was the red dot just to the right of the “am” in the date and time. The oldest location showing in Peter’s map is the light green dot at the north from July 19 as he was nearing his foraging area between Rattlesnake and Radabob Keys. Peter’s most recent location, from yesterday, is the red dot immediately to the right of the “pm” in the date and time.

That’s it for this week. I’ll send you another update next week. As always, thank you for your interest and your support.