You guessed it — we saw two more leatherbacks on Juno Beach on last night’s survey! Both turtles were previously tagged and were spotted less than 30 minutes apart.
The first turtle was found just south of LMC at 1 am. She was tagged by fellow researchers, so we will reach out to them for her nesting history. The turtle was of about average size but thin, which has been the trend with our late-season nesters lately. She is likely getting close to the end of her nesting season and will soon head back to foraging grounds.
The second turtle was spotted less than a half a mile away, not even 30 minutes later. Her name is Button and she was first tagged by LMC researchers in 2010. She was seen nesting twice that year, and twice more in 2012. This is the first time that our team has encountered Button this season. Button had a PIT tag (microchip) in one of her flippers but she did not have any metal flipper tags, so we gave her a shiny new pair.
Next week is our team’s last week of leatherback surveys. How many more leatherbacks do you think we’ll see? Stay tuned to find out!