Frankenturtle research

Sea turtles are amazing and important components of marine ecosystems, but every year dead turtles wash up on beaches in and around the Chesapeake Bay and we don't know what is causing these sea turtle stranding events.  In an effort to understand the causes of this mortality and improve the population sustainability of these amazing creatures, we are trying to backtrack from stranding events to potential mortality locations based on oceanic drift patterns of turtle carcasses.  An important part of this work involves releasing "frankenturtles", sea turtle carcasses that have satellite-tracked GPS buoys attached to them, to see how real carcasses drift so that we can improve our predictions of mortality locations.  Though this work is essential, we have so far carried it out on a shoestring budget.  Your support would greatly help us in our research.

This project has been extensively covered in the media.  A few articles about this project, including photos and video, are:

VIMS coverage
Flickr photo album
Daily Press coverage
Fox News