I think I’ve done a pretty lucky person
throughout my life is about just I’ve
had the chance to work on a lot of
different animals in a lot of really
amazing places for example I have worked
on black bears in the Pacific Northwest
I’ve studied flowers in the tropical
rain forests of Brazil and I women had a
chance to work in a captive prairie dog
colony right here at the Connecticut’s
Berkeley Zoo but what animal that I
never thought I would ever work on is
actually the animal I’m here to talk to
you about today and that’s the sea
turtle no don’t get me wrong I’ve only
saw that see trailers were incredibly
amazing animals it’s just that I’ve
never really pictured myself working on
them and and I’ll tell you why even
though it’s a little bit embarrassing
I’m actually afraid of the ocean
there’s something about deep dark water
sharks I actually I actually have a
little phobia about sharks and on top of
that I’m not even overly fond of the
beach so that together with the horse
fear the ocean thing looks so kind of
unlikely that I would have ever worked
on an animal like a sea turtle that Here
I am when I think about how I actually
ended up working
around with graduate student Katie Barba
my parents were marine conservation
group we head to tomorrow unexpected
results which I’ll talk about it at the
end of my talk well even though I’m
relatively new to the world of C trio
research lucky for me my colleague that
tomorrow definitely not from his 40
years they’ve actually helped to craft a
number of different environmental
policies designed to conserve and
protect sea turtles as well as
conducting a variety of different kinds
of research such as documenting the
nesting behaviors of the various trim
species that actually visit the beaches
of Brazil well the most abundant nesting
species of turtle in Brazil is actually
the loggerhead sea turtle every year
during the nesting season which happens
from between September to March
loggerheads make approximately 4,000
deaths along the Brazilian coast line
when a food a loggerhead is ready to lay
her eggs she emerges from the ocean
usually at night and begins doing here
in the sand
hind flippers about 250
the female our head is ready to lay her
eggs
Pinterest on my legs shall then begin to
use bitch punch and on hind flippers to
very bright under about two feet of sand
when she satisfied that all of the ends
are properly buried
behind
well if one goes well in about two
months those eggs will hatch and tied a
little Motorhead hatchling will emerge
they dig their way up through about two
feet of sand until they get to the
surface once they get to the surface
they are going to move as fast as they
possibly can because now they’re quite
literally in their ways for their lives
only about one in 10,000 hatchlings will
ever make it to maturity most of them
are going to die the predation
or exhaustion so absolutely critical
that they move from the message to the
water
but however hatchlings know how to find
their way from the nest to the water
well the answer to this is light whether
it’s the spend light reflecting off the
water during the day or the moon
lighting up the ocean like a beacon at
night the router is often the brightest
thing an options horizon but that’s
exactly what they had towards the
brightest thing on their horizon but
wasn’t heaven we actually didn’t know
the answer to this until about 2014 when
researchers from the University of
Central Florida use Title VII satellite
transmitters to discover that these
hatchlings were actually headed to a
very specific place in the North
Atlantic Ocean known as a Serra gothis
see the surface this is a really
interesting place it’s actually
characterized by these large mats of
floating seaweed called Sara Gotham
which actually form as a consequence of
these large circulating ocean currents
well it turns out that these large mats
of seaweed are actually great places for
a tiny little longer head hatchling
Tamara we find food but also to find
hiding places from potential predators
and whither they’re going to stay for
the next ten years or so until there
hasn’t let it become juveniles at which
point the head back to the coastal
waters in order to continue
growing and ultimately tonight
we know that these hatchlings are
actually finding away from the nest to
the water using the light as a cue the
listen though that they’re headed out to
the circus let’s see how do they patches
know which direction to go when they
actually get into the water in other
words how do they area properly so they
actually get out to the sarah gillespie
instead of somewhere else in the
Atlantic Ocean
the answer to this is we don’t exactly
know we reserved the probably using some
combination of cues for example wave
action we met attachments have a
tendency to move perpendicular into
oncoming waves and this probably to some
degree allows them to orient offshore
but at some point they switch the
reliance on using disk you and actually
refocus to different orientation cues
such as the use of an internal magnetic
compass and the Earth’s magnetic field
but how do these Hodgins know when to
switch cues and are there any other cues
that they’re using that we’re currently
unaware of well this is the big mystery
and the reason why we know so little
about what happens during those first
moments at sea is because hatchlings
swim underwater and they usually swim at
night making them literally impossible
to see well some of you might be asking
why don’t you just shine a light on them
if you want to look at them well as I
told you before these hatchlings are
actually attracted to light and if you
shine a light on them in order to
observe them they’re going to change
their orientation behavior so how do
they actually track something that you
can’t even see but you have to do it
indirectly now I suppose if I had a lot
of money for research I would probably
use a tracking device like an acoustic
transmitter but without me having a very
very small budget to work with we’d have
to come up with a different way of
tracking these hatchlings that was not
only going to be safe and effective but
really cheap I think there’s a saying
that necessity is the mother of
invention well if that’s true then I
definitely agree that poverty is the
father of innovation because we ended up
designing in really cheap deceptive but
simple tracking device and here it is
it starts off with a run and a half inch
glow stick in a plastic tube on the
bottom of the plastic tube we actually
wrapped black silicon tape in order to
prevent the predators from below from
being attracted to the glow of the white
stick
we’ve been attached a metal washer to
that tube in order to stabilize it now
this was absolutely essential because
this allowed the tube to only light
itself if it never got flipped over in
the ocean we then took this entire
apparatus and we attached it to a
fishing line and a swivel with the other
intention of actually attaching this to
a loggerhead hatchling now this brought
us to our next problem how do you
actually attach this thing securely
safely and reversibly to a baby turtle
when we ultimately decided to use a
lycra bathing suit unfortunately there
isn’t anyone out there right now
currently manufacturing bathing suits
for baby turtles so we had to actually
make these ourselves and so this is what
it ultimately looked like it’s hard to
see but it’s very sick maybe not the
sexiest there were three other nnessee
on a Brazilian Beach but it was cheap
and it worked
grand total for our tracking device one
dollar and five cents so we’re about to
use this tracking device to actually
monitor the movements of a loggerhead
hatches first moments at sea do this
every night we were put this tracking
device on our hatchlings then we’d
release them on the beach and allow them
to enter the ocean we then track the
hatchlings by actually following their
glowstick and documenting their
movements using a handheld GPS unit once
we were done we would capture the
hatchlings removed the tracking device
and set them back on their way
who eventually uploaded all of those GPS
tracks onto Google Earth so we could
visualize the hatchlings movements but
that’s not really moving because if I
did I’d apologize because I was kind of
misleading blood work is awesome but the
earth work is also really hard sometimes
I mean we were doing this at night we
were doing this in the dark we were
doing this in the water and I think I
told you I really don’t like deep dark
water right well but made it so much
worse was the surf I cannot tell you how
many times I got whacked in the face by
an oncoming wave or ended up with five
pounds of sand caught in my bathing suit
but as hard as it was for me it was so
much worse for the hatchlings there were
so many times where I would see these
poor little hatchling trying to get
through the surf only to get flipped
around in the waves and then get pushed
back to shore if you ever get them
caught in myself you know what this is
like
you get flipped upside down maybe you
bang your head your router up your nose
it’s a thoroughly miserable and
disorienting experience and so it was
really hard not to feel sorry for these
baby turtles and so sometimes for some
of these individuals we would literally
pick them up and carry them around
nervous self and release them on the
other side where we would then continue
to monitor their movements well
eventually when we uploaded all of the
GPS tracks to the turtles those those
ones that we carried over and those that
actually made it through the surf on
their own notice something rather
unusual but before I get to that let me
just backtrack just a bit
this is the map of Brazil the Remer dot
actually represents the location of our
study site if we live in to that site
you can see a satellite image that I
uploaded from Google Earth the actual
beach where we did our experiments so
right here you can see this is the beach
you can actually see all the surf as
well up there is north and over there is
the open Atlantic Ocean
now when you don’t know the GPS track
under Google Earth that’s what it looks
like this is a squiggly line actually
represents the movement of a single
loggerhead hatchling as it moves
offshore so what we did was we uploaded
the GPS tracks available hatchling that
did not go through the surf in other
words these are the ones that we moved
to that very little surf and carry to
the other side now just even though this
is just a subset of all of the GPS
tracks that we have but I think it’s
enough to give you a general sense of
how these hatchlings were moving during
those first moments at sea so they
uploaded the GPS tracks of the Hatchin
that did go through the surf so those
are the ones that were getting flipped
around by the waves when we compared
their movements to the movements of the
hatchlings that did not go through the
surf we noticed that they were moving
rather differently
it seemed as though the hatchling that
actually got flipped around in the surf
we’re moving in a more northerly
direction now why is this interesting
remember we’re headed new passions are
headed to the circus I see the circus I
see is north of Brazil we remember
turtles that actually ended up going
through the surf again these are the
ones are getting flipped around in the
water where the runs are headed in a
more northerly direction which in this
case is the right direction
how strange does that sound
the hatchlings that seemingly got
disoriented in the surf were the ones
that were actually oriented properly the
orient properly you have to get
disoriented first now I know this sounds
a little crazy and at the moment we
don’t have an explanation for why this
might be that we can speculate maybe
this is a way getting disoriented maybe
that’s a way for a hatchling to actually
reset itself so that it can switch and
focus on different but more appropriate
orientation cues in other words maybe
getting disoriented is an essential part
of proper loggerhead orientation well I
have to admit that when I first saw
these results I thought to myself I
don’t know what the heck is going on but
after thinking about it for a while it’s
not so crazy I mean in some ways it’s
almost cliche especially if you think
about it in terms of how our own lives
work life is never a straight path life
tosses you around you get a little lost
you get a little disoriented but
sometimes that’s just what we need to
get ourselves back on track
first thing is maybe loggerhead hatches
not that – maybe they need to get tossed
around maybe they need to get
disoriented because maybe just like us
that’s how they actually get themselves
back on track and how they’re absolutely
find their way thank you very much
throughout my life is about just I’ve
had the chance to work on a lot of
different animals in a lot of really
amazing places for example I have worked
on black bears in the Pacific Northwest
I’ve studied flowers in the tropical
rain forests of Brazil and I women had a
chance to work in a captive prairie dog
colony right here at the Connecticut’s
Berkeley Zoo but what animal that I
never thought I would ever work on is
actually the animal I’m here to talk to
you about today and that’s the sea
turtle no don’t get me wrong I’ve only
saw that see trailers were incredibly
amazing animals it’s just that I’ve
never really pictured myself working on
them and and I’ll tell you why even
though it’s a little bit embarrassing
I’m actually afraid of the ocean
there’s something about deep dark water
sharks I actually I actually have a
little phobia about sharks and on top of
that I’m not even overly fond of the
beach so that together with the horse
fear the ocean thing looks so kind of
unlikely that I would have ever worked
on an animal like a sea turtle that Here
I am when I think about how I actually
ended up working
around with graduate student Katie Barba
my parents were marine conservation
group we head to tomorrow unexpected
results which I’ll talk about it at the
end of my talk well even though I’m
relatively new to the world of C trio
research lucky for me my colleague that
tomorrow definitely not from his 40
years they’ve actually helped to craft a
number of different environmental
policies designed to conserve and
protect sea turtles as well as
conducting a variety of different kinds
of research such as documenting the
nesting behaviors of the various trim
species that actually visit the beaches
of Brazil well the most abundant nesting
species of turtle in Brazil is actually
the loggerhead sea turtle every year
during the nesting season which happens
from between September to March
loggerheads make approximately 4,000
deaths along the Brazilian coast line
when a food a loggerhead is ready to lay
her eggs she emerges from the ocean
usually at night and begins doing here
in the sand
hind flippers about 250
the female our head is ready to lay her
eggs
Pinterest on my legs shall then begin to
use bitch punch and on hind flippers to
very bright under about two feet of sand
when she satisfied that all of the ends
are properly buried
behind
well if one goes well in about two
months those eggs will hatch and tied a
little Motorhead hatchling will emerge
they dig their way up through about two
feet of sand until they get to the
surface once they get to the surface
they are going to move as fast as they
possibly can because now they’re quite
literally in their ways for their lives
only about one in 10,000 hatchlings will
ever make it to maturity most of them
are going to die the predation
or exhaustion so absolutely critical
that they move from the message to the
water
but however hatchlings know how to find
their way from the nest to the water
well the answer to this is light whether
it’s the spend light reflecting off the
water during the day or the moon
lighting up the ocean like a beacon at
night the router is often the brightest
thing an options horizon but that’s
exactly what they had towards the
brightest thing on their horizon but
wasn’t heaven we actually didn’t know
the answer to this until about 2014 when
researchers from the University of
Central Florida use Title VII satellite
transmitters to discover that these
hatchlings were actually headed to a
very specific place in the North
Atlantic Ocean known as a Serra gothis
see the surface this is a really
interesting place it’s actually
characterized by these large mats of
floating seaweed called Sara Gotham
which actually form as a consequence of
these large circulating ocean currents
well it turns out that these large mats
of seaweed are actually great places for
a tiny little longer head hatchling
Tamara we find food but also to find
hiding places from potential predators
and whither they’re going to stay for
the next ten years or so until there
hasn’t let it become juveniles at which
point the head back to the coastal
waters in order to continue
growing and ultimately tonight
we know that these hatchlings are
actually finding away from the nest to
the water using the light as a cue the
listen though that they’re headed out to
the circus let’s see how do they patches
know which direction to go when they
actually get into the water in other
words how do they area properly so they
actually get out to the sarah gillespie
instead of somewhere else in the
Atlantic Ocean
the answer to this is we don’t exactly
know we reserved the probably using some
combination of cues for example wave
action we met attachments have a
tendency to move perpendicular into
oncoming waves and this probably to some
degree allows them to orient offshore
but at some point they switch the
reliance on using disk you and actually
refocus to different orientation cues
such as the use of an internal magnetic
compass and the Earth’s magnetic field
but how do these Hodgins know when to
switch cues and are there any other cues
that they’re using that we’re currently
unaware of well this is the big mystery
and the reason why we know so little
about what happens during those first
moments at sea is because hatchlings
swim underwater and they usually swim at
night making them literally impossible
to see well some of you might be asking
why don’t you just shine a light on them
if you want to look at them well as I
told you before these hatchlings are
actually attracted to light and if you
shine a light on them in order to
observe them they’re going to change
their orientation behavior so how do
they actually track something that you
can’t even see but you have to do it
indirectly now I suppose if I had a lot
of money for research I would probably
use a tracking device like an acoustic
transmitter but without me having a very
very small budget to work with we’d have
to come up with a different way of
tracking these hatchlings that was not
only going to be safe and effective but
really cheap I think there’s a saying
that necessity is the mother of
invention well if that’s true then I
definitely agree that poverty is the
father of innovation because we ended up
designing in really cheap deceptive but
simple tracking device and here it is
it starts off with a run and a half inch
glow stick in a plastic tube on the
bottom of the plastic tube we actually
wrapped black silicon tape in order to
prevent the predators from below from
being attracted to the glow of the white
stick
we’ve been attached a metal washer to
that tube in order to stabilize it now
this was absolutely essential because
this allowed the tube to only light
itself if it never got flipped over in
the ocean we then took this entire
apparatus and we attached it to a
fishing line and a swivel with the other
intention of actually attaching this to
a loggerhead hatchling now this brought
us to our next problem how do you
actually attach this thing securely
safely and reversibly to a baby turtle
when we ultimately decided to use a
lycra bathing suit unfortunately there
isn’t anyone out there right now
currently manufacturing bathing suits
for baby turtles so we had to actually
make these ourselves and so this is what
it ultimately looked like it’s hard to
see but it’s very sick maybe not the
sexiest there were three other nnessee
on a Brazilian Beach but it was cheap
and it worked
grand total for our tracking device one
dollar and five cents so we’re about to
use this tracking device to actually
monitor the movements of a loggerhead
hatches first moments at sea do this
every night we were put this tracking
device on our hatchlings then we’d
release them on the beach and allow them
to enter the ocean we then track the
hatchlings by actually following their
glowstick and documenting their
movements using a handheld GPS unit once
we were done we would capture the
hatchlings removed the tracking device
and set them back on their way
who eventually uploaded all of those GPS
tracks onto Google Earth so we could
visualize the hatchlings movements but
that’s not really moving because if I
did I’d apologize because I was kind of
misleading blood work is awesome but the
earth work is also really hard sometimes
I mean we were doing this at night we
were doing this in the dark we were
doing this in the water and I think I
told you I really don’t like deep dark
water right well but made it so much
worse was the surf I cannot tell you how
many times I got whacked in the face by
an oncoming wave or ended up with five
pounds of sand caught in my bathing suit
but as hard as it was for me it was so
much worse for the hatchlings there were
so many times where I would see these
poor little hatchling trying to get
through the surf only to get flipped
around in the waves and then get pushed
back to shore if you ever get them
caught in myself you know what this is
like
you get flipped upside down maybe you
bang your head your router up your nose
it’s a thoroughly miserable and
disorienting experience and so it was
really hard not to feel sorry for these
baby turtles and so sometimes for some
of these individuals we would literally
pick them up and carry them around
nervous self and release them on the
other side where we would then continue
to monitor their movements well
eventually when we uploaded all of the
GPS tracks to the turtles those those
ones that we carried over and those that
actually made it through the surf on
their own notice something rather
unusual but before I get to that let me
just backtrack just a bit
this is the map of Brazil the Remer dot
actually represents the location of our
study site if we live in to that site
you can see a satellite image that I
uploaded from Google Earth the actual
beach where we did our experiments so
right here you can see this is the beach
you can actually see all the surf as
well up there is north and over there is
the open Atlantic Ocean
now when you don’t know the GPS track
under Google Earth that’s what it looks
like this is a squiggly line actually
represents the movement of a single
loggerhead hatchling as it moves
offshore so what we did was we uploaded
the GPS tracks available hatchling that
did not go through the surf in other
words these are the ones that we moved
to that very little surf and carry to
the other side now just even though this
is just a subset of all of the GPS
tracks that we have but I think it’s
enough to give you a general sense of
how these hatchlings were moving during
those first moments at sea so they
uploaded the GPS tracks of the Hatchin
that did go through the surf so those
are the ones that were getting flipped
around by the waves when we compared
their movements to the movements of the
hatchlings that did not go through the
surf we noticed that they were moving
rather differently
it seemed as though the hatchling that
actually got flipped around in the surf
we’re moving in a more northerly
direction now why is this interesting
remember we’re headed new passions are
headed to the circus I see the circus I
see is north of Brazil we remember
turtles that actually ended up going
through the surf again these are the
ones are getting flipped around in the
water where the runs are headed in a
more northerly direction which in this
case is the right direction
how strange does that sound
the hatchlings that seemingly got
disoriented in the surf were the ones
that were actually oriented properly the
orient properly you have to get
disoriented first now I know this sounds
a little crazy and at the moment we
don’t have an explanation for why this
might be that we can speculate maybe
this is a way getting disoriented maybe
that’s a way for a hatchling to actually
reset itself so that it can switch and
focus on different but more appropriate
orientation cues in other words maybe
getting disoriented is an essential part
of proper loggerhead orientation well I
have to admit that when I first saw
these results I thought to myself I
don’t know what the heck is going on but
after thinking about it for a while it’s
not so crazy I mean in some ways it’s
almost cliche especially if you think
about it in terms of how our own lives
work life is never a straight path life
tosses you around you get a little lost
you get a little disoriented but
sometimes that’s just what we need to
get ourselves back on track
first thing is maybe loggerhead hatches
not that – maybe they need to get tossed
around maybe they need to get
disoriented because maybe just like us
that’s how they actually get themselves
back on track and how they’re absolutely
find their way thank you very much
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