Peggy The Turtle Heads Back To America For Mating Season

Peggy the Loggerhead turtle is on her way to the U.S.A., and Belizeans are cheering her on in real-time. Peggy was tagged in 2023 by the environmental NGO, MarAlliance. She is one of three turtles, and the only female, currently being tracked and observed as they navigate through their migration period for mating season. Kirah Foreman Castillo, National Coordinator of MarAlliance, told us that tracking the movements and habits of these turtles plays a significant part in their preservation, as the research exposes challenges the animals face as they attempt to migrate.

 

Kirah Foreman Castillo, National Coordinator, MarAlliance
“So one of the things about sea turtles is that they tend to migrate across borders. They don’t, they tend to live in one area, they feed in another, they feed in that area and then when it comes to reproduction, to mating, they often leave. We know a lot about that turtles migrate between the Caribbean, within the Mesoamerican region where we’re located. But we weren’t quite sure what was going on with our population. Where are they going? We know that we have turtles coming from other regions, to nest on our shores, but what’s going on with the Belizean turtles, those that live and forage within our water. So we decided to undergo this like tagging program. At the moment we have three turtles tracking. First of all, we were kind of prioritizing males because we know a lot about females, but we didn’t know about males. So Peggy was kind of our lucky female to get a tag and glad that we did because we would have never had known that our females are not only our males are moving but our females are still going across borders. And one of our focuses to looking at the males is that we know a lot about where the females are going. Because they go to nesting beach, because of their life cycle, they have to go to their natal beach. So they need to, wherever they’re born, this is where they go back to when it comes to nesting. So more than likely Peggy was born somewhere, if she goes to the U.S., everybody’s guess so far is Florida. If she goes to Florida, whichever beach she lands on, this is where she was born, this is where she was hatched. As a hatchling and then they go off into their adult habitat where they live and where they feed, which we know is Belize, and the females will go back to their natal beach. That is very important for us to note when it comes to management of the sea turtles, because oftentimes we have a lot of development occurring. You can imagine getting back to your beach now and you have a seawall. And this is where you have to go and nest, you know, and then you’re not able to access that beach. So, either they find another suitable site, or a lot of times they’ll just discard the eggs into the water because they cannot access their nesting beaches. So it takes about twenty years for a female to return back. We know that Peggy is an adult. She is at reproductive age. She’s probably already over fifty because of her size but it takes about twenty years for them to become reproductive.”