SWOT Develops Minimum Standards for Monitoring Effort and Census Data

During the past year, SWOT has developed a strategy to achieve the long-term goal of making SWOT a global monitoring system for sea turtle populations and species. SWOT is creating a one-of-a-kind statistical modeling program that will be a tool for researchers and data providers to analyze their data and to estimate actual nesting numbers in the absence of complete monitoring coverage.

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TurtleWatch: Turtle Watch Minimizes Clashes between Loggerheads and Longliners

Juvenile loggerheads leave their natal beaches in Japan and spend a large portion of their early life in the open ocean traveling and foraging along a trans-Pacific “highway,” with some turtles reaching foraging grounds in Baja California. TurtleWatch uses up-to-date oceanographic information to give recommendations to longline fishers about which ares to fish if they are to avoid accidentally catching loggerheads.

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The Flatback: Australia’s Own Sea Turtle

Until 1988, the Australian flatback was still so poorly understood that it was considered to be in the same genus as the green turtle. In the short time since then, science not only has renamed the flatback, but also has seemingly rediscovered Australia’s own sea turtle. This SWOT Feature Article presents a regional scale map of flatback nesting throughout its range.

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