The Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center
Conserving and protecting sea turtles through rescue, rehabilitation, release, nest monitoring, science, and education. Official Bsky account of the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center.
- Help select KBSTRRC's 2026 sea turtle naming theme! Visit lp.constantcontactpages.com/sv/CdnNK2i/T... to select your favorite category. Your voice matters!🐢🐢🐢 This #conservation work for protected #seaturtles at #KBSTRRC is authorized by the NC Wildlife Resources Commission, ES Permit 25ST05.
- A few more episodes of "Wild Things" with Shawna Kenney and @whqr.bsky.social are now out, including two where I helped with audio mixing. First, here's an episode about the amazing @seaturtlehospital.bsky.social in Surf City, NC. #SciComm
- Excited to hear about NEXT year's International Sea Turtle Symposium in Hawaii!! #ISTS43 #ISTS44 #seaturtles
- Humane euthanasia is often not discussed in #seaturtle rehabilitation. Harrison Watler presented a decision making framework that could help. #ISTS43
- Environmental enrichment is very beneficial to #seaturtles in rehabilitation. Eva-Marie Alexandra Pangiotou presented work done at Two Oceans Aquarium and found even short term exposure to increased desired exploratory behavior and decreased undesired stereotypical behavior. #ISTS43
- In a first comprehensive clinical assessment of #seaturtles in Saudi Arabia, Maximilian M.R. Polyak found 90% of turtles present with chronic debilitation syndrome. Uric acid levels very high. Other indicators of stress. Very interesting! #ISTS43
- Even though Guanabara Bay, Brazil is polluted, green #seaturtles use it as a feeding ground from juvenile to subadult stages. Gisele Lobo-Hajdu shared that 60% have FP tumors. She took and analyzed cloacal swabs and identified 7 bacterial species, 6 of which are resistant to antibiotics. #ISTS43
- Regional clusters of ChHV5 exist on the east coast of Australia, similar to other parts of the world. Karina Jones analyzed samples biopsied from FP tumors on #seaturtles along the west coast of Australia and also found regional clusters. 2 of 3 clusters matched east coast variants. #ISTS43
- The prevalence of fibropapillomatilosis (FP) tumors is higher on #seaturtle ventral surfaces, reported Carson Harvill. She studied wild juvenile green turtles as well as those in rehabilitation in Florida. InageJ was helpful in analyzing photos. GoPros were challenging to use in the wild. #ISTS43
- Very sobering, given #climatechange. Significant differences in blood values exist between 4-5 wk #seaturtle neonates that incubated in hot nests vs cold nests, found Samantha G. Kuschke. Her findings suggest there could be long term negative impacts from increased incubation temps. #ISTS43
- Chemical exposure can change over time. Kimberly A. Finlayson suggests including a temporal element in studies of contaminants in #seaturtles to better understand risk. Effects-based analysis can help identify risk from organics. #ISTS43
- In a study of juvenile hawksbill #seaturtles in the Maldives, Mariana Fragoso conducted health assessments, established clinical range. Maximilian M.R. Polyak presented the project. While most turtles exhibited good body condition, clinical findings found stressors to renal function. #ISTS43
- Interesting project! Krista Blair Reed analyzed blood samples taken from nesting and non-nesting loggerhead #seaturtles in the Yucatan. #ISTS43
- Using biomarkers that indicate physiological processes, Joslyn Blessing Kent found her study group of captive hawksbill #seaturtles are capital breeders. Markers examined included triglycerides (TRG), beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), and testosterone (T). TRG useful as a reproductive biomarker. #ISTS43
- The technological tools available to identify individual #seaturtles from photographs are amazing! Jesús Fernando Franco López presented the Graph Attention Networks (GAT) Model, a strong new model that performs very well in image identification. #ISTS43
- Fascinating morphological and kinematic study of leatherback hatchlings presented by Samantha Elizabeth Trail. Leatherbacks appear to produce force in different portions of the power stroke than other #seaturtles. #ISTS43
- Does paternity impact #seaturtle hatchling fitness? Speaking on behalf of Alyssa Rose Hennessey, Holly Schmidt presented results suggesting that hatchlings from multiple paternity nests perform slightly better on crawling tests & righting tests than hatchlings from single paternity nests. #ISTS43
- Color vision differences likely optimize foraging and navigation based on habitat- specific light availability, asserted Mohammed F. Khayat. He found this partitioning in studies of green and hawksbill #seaturtles. #ISTS43
- Bio-fouling made plastic more attractive to green #seaturtles, found Lyu Lyu. Turtles appear to use both visual and olfactory cues, with smell being most important. #ISTS43
- Models can offer insight into #seaturtle movement. Julien Temple-Boyer presented a Sea Turtle Active Movement Model (STAMM) and validate it with data from satellite- tracked turtles. #ISTS43
- In studying green #seaturtles in shallow mangrove creeks in the Bahamas, Ruth Doñate-Ordóñez found some of the shortest dives ever recorded. She suggested the turtles are partially inflating their lungs for neutral buoyancy. Conservation implication - Possible risk of drowning faster. #ISTS43
- Surveys performed over 4 years in the Carragas Islands off Brazil found the longest stay was 45 days. Suzana Machado Guimarães explained that #seaturtles showed strong site fidelity. Turtles were mainly observed at depths <10m. Red algae and filamentous green algae were preferred food. #ISTS43
- In another #citizenscience project around Reunion Island, 2 decades of #seaturtle sightings gathered from divers lend insight into the greens and hawksbills in that area. Claire Jean also shared some pros and cons of these data. #ISTS43
- Through a combination of citizen science by divers & team led surveys, TurtleWatch Egypt has gathered 10,000+ sightings of #seaturtles in the Red Sea Micol Montagna described how these data are leading to new insights about the species, sex and age class distribution, and movement. #ISTS43
- Overwashed loggerhead #seaturtle nests in North Carolina, USA do better than those in Alabama, USA despite more frequent wave exposure, found Matt Ware. More nests were overwashed in AL (35.4%) than NC (8.5%). The overwash nest success in AL (33.8%) was lower than in NC (61.7%). #ISTS43
- Through use of drone footage and spatial analysis, Adrian Wilson analyzed a key nesting site in Trinidad. He found sites that could be used for #seaturtle near relocation, as well as places where any near laid would be washed away. #ISTS43
- In an excellent and coincidentally appropriate talk punctuated by a tropical storm here in Ghana, Jane L. Hardwick presented her work analyzing wash over of green and loggerhead #seaturtle nests in the Cayman Islands and looking at nest success. Results will inform relocation decisions. #ISTS43
- "We are dancing on the deck of the Titanic because we are not understanding the habitat that lies beneath," asserts Ronel Nel as she encouraged #seaturtle scientists and conservationists to consider the "shorescape." Beaches are an overlooked ecosystem, and are in trouble. #ISTS43
- A nesting beach in Batoke, Cameroon has no hatch success due to flooding. Guy Aristide Mengoue hopes to start an egg incubation program to facilitate hatching. #ISTS43 #seaturtles
- Body size, Julian date, and beach had no significant effect on the observed inter-nesting period of olive ridley #seaturtles in Costa Rica, found Laura Fuentes-Tejada. Inaccurate sea surface temperature may affect this analysis. #ISTS43
- An incredible, detailed new model developed by Nicola Mitchell and others predicts the impact of climate change on nest temperature. She used the model to test a conservation strategy to split #seaturtle clutches in order to reduce metabolic heat inside the nest. This method shows promise. #ISTS43
- Next shading resulted in lower nest temperatures for leatherback #seaturtles in Costa Rica, found Ellie Weir. Impacts vary by year, however, depending on temperature, rain events. Important to consider environmental variables before scaling up conservation initiatives. #ISTS43
- Do sex, maturity, or reproductive status affect the diets of Caribbean green #seaturtles? Renato Saragoça Bruno found that they don't on the nesting grounds. Terrestrial vegetation was the most important diet component on the nesting grounds. Plastic also consumed there. #ISTS43
- Barnacles can be a useful indicator of habitat use in #seaturtles. Sergio Poyatos Iglesias found that growth rates of Chelonibia testudinaria (a common barnacle of sea turtles) growth rates vary between hosts and locations, so measurement of barnacles at each site is necessarily. #ISTS43
- Determining where #seaturtles fall on the capital-income breeding status spectrum may be a useful predictor of responses to environmental perturbations. First application of using amino acids to assess fasting in sea turtles, by Hannah B. VanderZanden. #ISTS43
- In a long term study, Larry Wood found that the Key West National Wildlife Refuge appears to be an important recruitment site for hawksbill #seaturtles arriving from multiple rookeries around the region. #ISTS43
- Fastloc tracking is a very useful tool in ecological research. Using this technology, Antoine Laforge found juvenile hawksbill #seaturtles spend extended time at the surface in the morning, especially when sea surface temperature is low. #ISTS43
- At one location in southeast Florida, juvenile green #seaturtles appeared to prefer the natural reef to the artificial reef, found Andie Fisher. As artificial reefs increase off the coast, it's important to evaluate habitat use. #ISTS43
- Imagine being able to observe your research animals from a dock in the marina! Katie Kress observed juvenile green #seaturtles feeding on algae that grows on docks as well as floating mangrove seeds. Turtles also demonstrated social behavior including chasing and biting. #ISTS43
- Upon release, two rehabilitated loggerhead #seaturtles had very different movement patterns, found Alejandro Usategui-Martin. One turtle went to the open ocean, the other stayed coastal. #ISTS43
- Very early stage leatherback #seaturtles dive much deeper than expected, found Tony Candela. He used novel miniaturized satellite tags to study vertical behavior in leatherback hatchlings in Florida, USA and Thailand. #ISTS43
- Two species of barnacles, Chelonibia spp. and Conchoderma spp. can be used as habitat indicators in loggerhead #seaturtles at a global scale, found Sara Isabel Claverie-García. These might not be applicable to greens or hawksbills, however. #ISTS43
- Green #seaturtles in the Red Sea exhibit preferences for certain species of algae, found Hugo Francis Mann. Additionally, smaller juvenile turtles tend to forage in the south while larger, older females forage closer to the nesting site in the north. #ISTS43
- Sea turtles in Peru exhibit distinct resource use patterns, found Mariela Pajuelo. Loggerheads and leatherbacks display broader movements while olive ridleys and greens show more localized behavior. #ISTS43 #seaturtle
- In studying leatherback #seaturtles from Florida, Derek Aoki found both broad and localized spatial foraging strategies. #ISTS43
- Mixed stock analysis (MSA) and 2bRAD offer comparable methodologies to assess origins of #seaturtles in foraging grounds, found Helena Vela Garcia. She further found shifts in composition that may be due to changes in sea surface currents and population dynamics. #ISTS43
- Green #seaturtles at one study site in Japan exhibited a preference for specific marine algae and seagrasses, found Megumi Kawai. They also exhibit foraging site fidelity. #ISTS43
- In studying leatherback #seaturtle nesting at Las Tortugas, Costa Rica, Faridah Olabisi Fatungase found that nesting was fairly stable. Declines in one area were offset by increases in other areas. Interesting work! #ISTS43
- The Manyange Na Elombo National Park in Cameroon has 3 species of #seaturtles that nest. Yves Maxine Mondjeli presented conservation data from the past 10 years and compared years with fewer to more patrols. #ISTS43
- For the first time in the 2021/22 nesting season, all 5 #seaturtle species that inhabit the Bazaruto Archipelago National Park nested. Cool! Lorena Michel de Encarnação Matos found nesting success is stable. Conservation efforts should continue. #ISTS43
