Bortie the loggerhead sea turtle is on the move toward a familiar destination.
Satellite tracking data shows Bortie — adopted by island turtle enthusiasts years ago — moving north in the Gulf toward Anna Maria Island, where the Sea Turtle Conservancy began tracking the loggerhead in 2018.
STC is an international organization dedicated to helping endangered or threatened sea turtles survive through tracking, education and research.
Bortie, as of April 13, was southwest of Cape Coral, south of AMI.
In June 2018, Bortie was captured and outfitted with a tracking device after nesting at Coquina Beach in Bradenton Beach.
Bortie spent much of the past three years swimming in a feeding area near the Florida Keys, Dan Evans of the Sea Turtle Conservancy said April 13 by phone.
Tracking devices are used to learn about turtle activity beyond nesting. The devices collect information on depth, temperature and swim speed in some cases, Evans said.
The devices also send signals to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather satellites to calculate locations.
STC updates tracking maps daily. The organization is tracking 17 turtles.
To boost support for turtle conservation, STC uses the tracking to run a race, Tour de Turtles, so people can watch to see which STC tagged turtle will swim the furthest.
“They try to get people to engage in the cause,” said Suzi Fox, executive director of Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring, which partners with STC and has helped identify local sponsors for the Tour de Turtles.
Through funding, as well as sponsorships from local businesses — each tracker costs about $5,000 — AMITW aims to track one sea turtle a year.
In 2018, Bortel’s Lounge, 10002 Gulf Drive, Anna Maria, sponsored Bortie through a partnership with AMITW.
A year later Bortel’s sponsored Bortie 2, another loggerhead, whose tracker lasted 241 days, stopping off the coast of Cuba.
Fox and AMITW volunteers assist, but Evans does the tagging on AMI under a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission permit.
Observations gained by tracking Bortie have been unusual for several reasons, Evans said.
After being tagged in Bradenton Beach in 2018, Bortie swam south toward a feeding area, Evans said.
Then Bortie turned to swim north toward Siesta Key. When the tracker showed Bortie to be near Siesta Key, shore monitors found two nests and a false crawl, which is when a sea turtle crawls on the beach to nest but abandons the effort.
“We don’t get that many opportunities to track a turtle for two nesting seasons,” Evans said.
Evans said it will be interesting to see whether Bortie returns to Siesta Key or Anna Maria Island.
