Scientists have long been tracking the migration of sea turtles as they work to protect them from extinction.
Their work, at times, has included tracking the migration patterns of individual turtles.
Recently, one leatherback sea turtle traveled 12,774 miles from Indonesia to Oregon, one of the longest recorded migrations of any vertebrate animal and a record for a sea turtle.
Leatherback sea turtles are the largest of all living turtles and are widely distributed throughout the world’s oceans.
They have been seen in the waters off Argentina, Tasmania, Alaska and Nova Scotia. Adult leatherbacks periodically migrate from their temperate foraging grounds to breeding grounds in the tropics.
Scientists at the National Marine Fisheries Service tracked one female nester, who was tagged on Jamursba-Medi beach in Papua, Indonesia, on her journey back to her foraging grounds off the coast of Oregon.
She was tracked for 647 days covering a distance about equal to two round trips between New York and Los Angeles.
The longest measured annual migration for any animal is the 40,000-mile journey between New Zealand and the North Pacific of the sooty shearwater puffin, a medium-sized seabird.
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