It was a turtle crawl for science.
Cheers of hundreds of people rang out June 27 as members of the Sea Turtle Conservancy, working with Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring, released a female loggerhead sea turtle at Coquina Beach in Bradenton Beach.
Onlookers lined the sand in a V shape to guide the turtle to the water.
“This is my very first time seeing it,” said Bradenton resident Rachael Thurmond. “It was just so beautiful and so magical.”
The turtle had nested overnight and was then outfitted with a satellite transmitter to collect migratory data.
“Suzi,” as the turtle was nicknamed, was released to hurrahs from hundreds of people who went to the beach to observe.
The turtle’s crawl to the Gulf took close to five minutes.
“I think it was awesome, seeing the turtle go out,” said Caleb Jameson, a volunteer for Longboat Key Turtle Watch who attended the event. “They really only tag one a year. So getting the opportunity to come over here and see it go out is kind of a special and unique opportunity.”
The turtle is named Suzi in honor of the late AMITW director Suzi Fox, who died Sept. 30, 2022.
“We’re definitely excited to dedicate this to Suzi’s memory,” Kristen Mazzarella, executive director of AMITW, said at the event. “She’s a pretty big girl and we’re excited to see whether or not she will come back to lay at this beach.”
AMITW has coordinated conservation efforts for more than 30 years along the Manatee County shoreline. In three decades, the group has monitored more than 7,300 turtles, according to the AMITW website.
The STC, a nonprofit founded in 1959 by Joshua Powers, is a conservation group headquartered in Gainesville that promotes the protection of sea turtles around the world through research and educational events.
Dan Evans, senior research biologist for STC, said Suzi nested at Coquina the night before the tagging.
“After she was done nesting, we captured her,” Evans said. “This morning we have attached a satellite transmitter and the idea is to find out where she’s going to find food.”
Evans said the data from the transmitter will establish migratory pathways sea turtles use to get to foraging grounds.
“Every year we add new individuals to that data set so we can look at areas that need to be protected or international areas that we need an agreement with to try and protect their feeding grounds,” Evans said.
According to the STC website, loggerheads live their life in the water and only come ashore to nest.
They are highly migratory, often traveling hundreds or even thousands of miles between the beaches where they lay their eggs and the feeding grounds where they spend much of their time.
Suzi’s tracker will relay data to scientists as part of the STC’s Tour de Turtles.
The research initiative, started in 2008, is a data study of the science, research and geography of sea turtle migration using satellite telemetry.
Scheduled to begin Aug. 1, Tour de Turtles will track individual sea turtles for approximately three months as they leave their respective nesting beaches and race to complete a “turtle” marathon.
Educational migration maps will show the turtle movements and locations, allowing people to observe as researchers discover where Suzi nests on land and swims in water.
The STC is locally sponsored by nonprofit Coastal Wildlife Club and Waterline Villas & Marina in Holmes Beach.
To follow Suzi, go online to tourdeturtles.org and click on the link for “Turtle Tracker.”
For more information on Sea Turtle Conservancy, go online to conserveturtles.org
For more information on AMITW, go online to islandturtlewatch.com.