Scientists Followed a Leatherback Turtle Through Hurricane Florence -- Here's What They Saw (popsci.com) 54
An anonymous reader shares a report: At 10:00 p.m. on May 5, a team of people quietly approached a leatherback lying in the sand on the Florida beach. Working quickly while the female sea turtle laid her eggs, they drilled two small holes in the back of her shell. Through the holes they threaded zip ties, affixing a small transmitter with epoxy on the back for added security.
Over the next few months, members of the non-profit, Florida Leatherbacks, Inc, watched as Isla the sea turtle visited the beach a few more time to lay new clutches of fragile eggs in the sand, before starting her late summer migration north along the East Coast. "We're monitoring where she is right now, and it just happens to be in the middle of a hurricane," Kelly Martin says. Isla is now off the Outer Banks of North Carolina, to the north of where Hurricane Florence made landfall late last week. For a while it seemed like she would get caught in the massive storm as it slid past the coast. She wound up north of the worst of it, but still experienced rough seas over the weekend. Even before the hurricane hit, she surfaced in an area where waves reached 14 feet high.
"Turtles are air breathers, so they need to come to the surface periodically to breathe, but I suspect many dive below the surface to weather the storms," Kate Mansfield, director of the Marine Turtle Research Group at the University of Central Florida, says in an email. "I have tracked turtles through some storms in the past and never saw any sort of movement that suggested they were trying to get away from the storm (or that the storms shifted their paths). The turtles I tracked were larger juveniles -- at that size they can dive 100s of meters deep."
Over the next few months, members of the non-profit, Florida Leatherbacks, Inc, watched as Isla the sea turtle visited the beach a few more time to lay new clutches of fragile eggs in the sand, before starting her late summer migration north along the East Coast. "We're monitoring where she is right now, and it just happens to be in the middle of a hurricane," Kelly Martin says. Isla is now off the Outer Banks of North Carolina, to the north of where Hurricane Florence made landfall late last week. For a while it seemed like she would get caught in the massive storm as it slid past the coast. She wound up north of the worst of it, but still experienced rough seas over the weekend. Even before the hurricane hit, she surfaced in an area where waves reached 14 feet high.
"Turtles are air breathers, so they need to come to the surface periodically to breathe, but I suspect many dive below the surface to weather the storms," Kate Mansfield, director of the Marine Turtle Research Group at the University of Central Florida, says in an email. "I have tracked turtles through some storms in the past and never saw any sort of movement that suggested they were trying to get away from the storm (or that the storms shifted their paths). The turtles I tracked were larger juveniles -- at that size they can dive 100s of meters deep."
Only a few meters down.... (Score:4, Informative)
In order to avoid the wave action, a few meters below the surface is all you need to get.
Re: Only a few meters down.... (Score:2, Funny)
Poor thing must have been horrified by the humans drilling its shell, tagging it, and doing continuous âoesurveillanceâ on it to invade its privacy and deanonymize its wild habits.
The big tech companies keep trying to call it âoeBig Dataâ but itâ(TM)s just âoeMass Surveillanceâ techniques applied without questioning whether itâ(TM)s legal, moral, reasonable, or even worth the money. The only reason it even gets funding is because itâ(TM)s passed off as âoead
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Poor thing must have been horrified by the humans drilling its shell, tagging it, and doing continuous âoesurveillanceâ on it to invade its privacy and deanonymize its wild habits.
[...]
Yes, I am certain this is most definitely what she was thinking, and not an anthropomorphised mischaracterization.
Re: Only a few meters down.... (Score:4, Funny)
They even browse the web with javascript disabled.
she was used to this (Score:2)
The turtle has a Xiaomi phone, has Windows 10 on her laptop, and uses Facebook religiously. So, she really coudln't care less about privacy.
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That's the solution then, isn't it? Instead of moving further inland to escape a hurricane, people should just dive a few meters below the surface of the sea to avoid the wave action. Humans can do that. Sure, they have to surface occasionally to breathe, but in that respect humans are no different from turtles.
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"I have tracked turtles through some storms in the past and never saw any sort of movement that suggested they were trying to get away from the storm (or that the storms shifted their paths). The turtles I tracked were larger juveniles -- at that size they can dive 100s of meters deep."
Why did this bring up images of the sea turtles from Finding Nemo? Oh, man. Hey, no hurling on the shell, dude, ok? Just waxed it.
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Your username is certainly correct.
As a SCUBA diver, I can assure you that wave action can be felt more than "a few meters below the surface". Wikipedia claims that wave action if fair weather can be felt 5 (a 'few') to 15 (more than a few) meters below the surface (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_base) but doesn't offer data about the wave base during a storm. A quick check of scientific papers suggests that storm waves can affect the sea floor down to 100m in the area where the storm passed.
Oh, during
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It's interesting because the sharks actually DO avoid the hurricane, even though as you said, they don't really need to.
Exciting (Score:2)
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Well yes it does. But for other animals they will pierce their ears, or for non-vertebrates or non-animals We do much more to them.
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That escalated quickly.
The point is that for animals if we want to track them, sometime we may injure them a little bit. If we do this in a way that will have minimal pain, and will not adversely affect their life. Yes they drilled holes in the Animal. But they also filled it back in, and doesn't seem to hurt the Animal in the long run.
For Trees we just nail stuff to them, figuring they don't feel pain.
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That reminds me of a story ...
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Slashdot editors, please avoid these titles (Score:5, Insightful)
"Here's what they saw?" That is a pure clickbait title. It's about on the same level as "You won't believe what happens next!" or "they came up with a number of conclusions. #7 will blow your mind."
No site that even halfway respects its integrity should use title tricks like this.
Please do not post click-bait. Please don't chase the lowest common denominator.
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I read that thing once. Turns out, #7 was a handgun.
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"Five States of Matter You Should Avoid Existing In!"
"New Laws of Physics Most People Don't Know About (And Probably Can't Understand)!"
"Pay Off Your Mortgage Instantly With This Insane Trick (And Yes, By 'Insane Trick' We Mean a Crazy Person Who Frequents Prostitutes)!"
"10 Old Electronic Gadgets in Your Basement That Could Be Worth Millions (To an Electronics Disposal Company That Will Just Illegally Dump Them in a Landfill, Go Out of Business, and Skip Town With the Money)!"
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In fairness, that headline is copied verbatim from the Popular Science website. At least they had the decency to leave out the subtitle "Satellites, sharks, and turtles, oh my."
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Click here to learn how Slashdot editors can avoid these titles with ONE SIMPLE TRICK! [slashdot.org]
Doesn't matter (Score:1)
If she gets hit by a truck or a house falls on top of her, Trump will claim she died of old age.
Where does this turtle charge her device? (Score:1)
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Finding Nemo/Dory... (Score:2)
So DUDEs, the turtle scenes were accurate? :P