Community Partnerships Support Expansion of Leatherback Conservation in Puerto Rico

Leatherback turtle nesting populations in the North Atlantic are undergoing dramatic and widespread declines—at a rate of four percent per year. This reflects an overall trend of leatherback decline across the globe.

To help the species, Kara Dodge, PhD, a research scientist with the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, studies and tracks endangered leatherback sea turtles nesting in southeastern Puerto Rico because the island hosts the highest numbers of leatherback nests in the United States. After nesting, the leatherbacks travel to important feeding habitats along the Gulf of Mexico, Canada, and the US East Coast, including the jellyfish-rich waters of Massachusetts.

In partnership with community-led sea turtle conservation groups, Dodge uses satellite tag technology to collect data on female leatherback reproductive behaviors and patterns, including where leatherbacks lay their eggs, frequency of nesting, where leatherbacks travel between nesting events, and post-nesting migration to northern foraging areas. These tagging and monitoring efforts are crucial for accurate population status assessments and identifying opportunities to protect leatherbacks across the Caribbean during the breeding and nesting season and throughout the Northwest Atlantic during migration and feeding.

A Record-Breaking Year

Dodge and her colleagues, including Sarah Perez, a senior biologist with the Aquarium’s Rescue and Rehabilitation team, and Emily Jones, a scientific program officer with the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, spent about three weeks this past May making a migration of their own, circumnavigating Puerto Rico to work with leatherbacks on the north, west, and southeast coasts. Typically, the team focuses on a single nesting beach, but thanks to additional funding from an anonymous donor and the Ferris Olson Family Foundation for Ocean Stewardship, they were able to expand the project scope to include three regions with some of the highest leatherback nest numbers on the island.

The Aquarium team worked with the Puerto Rico Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales (DRNA) and long-time partner Amigos de las Tortugas Marinas to continue their study on leatherbacks in the southeast and collaborated with new partners Chelonia and Proyecto de Conservación de Tortugas Marinas – Vida Marina to study leatherbacks in Dorado on the north coast and Añasco on the west coast. These two new sites have had little to no prior satellite tagging effort, presenting an opportunity to compare turtle behavior from adjacent nesting regions for the first time.

To understand broader movement patterns and nesting connectivity in the Northern Caribbean, the Aquarium partnered with The St. Croix Sea Turtle Project, whose team led a concurrent tagging study of leatherback turtles in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, as part of a data sharing initiative.

Despite navigating new terrain and challenging weather conditions, including extreme heat, rain, and flash flooding, the Aquarium team tagged 18 leatherbacks during the trip, a record since starting the project in 2018.

“We really tripled our effort this year,” Dodge said. “Eighteen tags and three study sites is our most ambitious field season to date.”

Why is Tagging Important?

Satellite tags allow researchers to track leatherbacks’ migration paths in real time, some of which can be seen on the Aquarium’s Sea Turtle Tracker. Leatherback turtles are powerful swimmers; they can travel more than 60 kilometers (almost 40 miles!) a day.

“They move through the territorial waters of many, many, many countries. They are an animal that needs international coordination and cooperation in terms of protections,” Dodge said. “It’s not just about protecting them in Puerto Rico and other US waters.”

Skills for Future Conservation Leaders

This year’s tagging project also achieved a second goal: passing on knowledge and skills for further leatherback conservation. One of the project’s priorities is to promote training and learning exchange with and among local partners. This year, there were opportunities for team members from different regions to travel between sites and learn new techniques from each other (e.g., drone-based beach monitoring), as well as satellite tagging procedures. Importantly, next-generation conservation leaders, including current students and recent university graduates, were involved in the work.

Members of the Aquarium’s sea turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation team, Linda Lory, Kristen Luise, and Alexis Wrate, also traveled to Puerto Rico to assist with parts of the project while learning techniques for tagging and working with leatherbacks. Back in New England, they’re already putting these skills into practice during local tagging missions with leatherbacks at sea.

Inspiring Ocean Advocates

The project inspired ocean advocates in the local communities, too. Over 75 volunteers helped the research team search for nesting leatherbacks across many miles of beach. Researchers take measurements of and tag leatherbacks while the turtles are nesting and in a focused egg-laying state to avoid disturbing them, usually between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m., so many volunteers worked in the late hours of the night and early hours of the morning.

“We were incredibly successful this season thanks to the tireless efforts of our local partners, many of whom volunteer because they are passionate about protecting Puerto Rico’s sea turtles,” Dodge said. “It was astounding how many people came and worked with us. Young kids to retirees and every age in between. People who would stay up all night with us, leaving the beach at 4 or 5 a.m. to head to their day jobs with no sleep. Everyone was so enthusiastic about the project.”

Looking Ahead

Dodge and the Aquarium team plan to return to the same sites next year, aiming to ramp up data collection at the newer north and west coast sites to catch up to the amount of data they’ve collected from the longer-term southeast coast site.

“Leatherbacks are part of Puerto Rico’s rich biodiversity and cultural heritage,” said Dodge. “The best way to safeguard them for future generations is through collaborative research and science-based protections. We hope the work we’re doing now will secure a bright future for these extraordinary turtles.”

Tagging Leatherbacks in Puerto Rico

Dr. Kara Dodge discusses her work to protect leatherback sea turtles with community partners in Puerto Rico.

Leatherback tagging work was authorized under permit #s DRNA 2024-EPE-008, DRNA 2024-EPE-012, and DRNA 2024-EPE-017.