Effective transboundary conservation of highly migratory marine animals requires international management cooperation as well as clear scientific information about habitat use by these species. Populations of leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) in the eastern Pacific have declined by >90% during the past two decades, primarily due to unsustainable egg harvest and fisheries bycatch mortality. While research and conservation efforts on nesting beaches are ongoing, relatively little is known about this population of leatherbacks' oceanic habitat use and migration pathways. We present the largest multi-year (2004–2005, 2005–2006, and 2007) satellite tracking dataset (12,095 cumulative satellite tracking days) collected for leatherback turtles. Forty-six females were electronically tagged during three field seasons at Playa Grande, Costa Rica, the largest extant nesting colony in the eastern Pacific. After completing nesting, the turtles headed southward, traversing the dynamic equatorial currents with rapid, directed movements. In contrast to the highly varied dispersal patterns seen in many other sea turtle populations, leatherbacks from Playa Grande traveled within a persistent migration corridor from Costa Rica, past the equator, and into the South Pacific Gyre, a vast, low-energy, low-productivity region. We describe the predictable effects of ocean currents on a leatherback migration corridor and characterize long-distance movements by the turtles in the eastern South Pacific. These data from high seas habitats will also elucidate potential areas for mitigating fisheries bycatch interactions. These findings directly inform existing multinational conservation frameworks and provide immediate regions in the migration corridor where conservation can be implemented. We identify high seas locations for focusing future conservation efforts within the leatherback dispersal zone in the South Pacific Gyre.

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Remote time–depth recorders (TDR) were deployed on six gravid leatherbacks nesting on Sandy Point, St. Croix. Dive behavior was monitored continuously for each turtle during internesting intervals ranging from 9 to 11 days. Dive duration averaged 9.9 min/dive (SD = 5.3, n = 5096); mean depth was 61.6 m (SD = 59.1, n = 5096). One turtle dived twice beyond the range of her TDR to depths we estimate >1000 m. Postdive surfacing intervals averaged 4.9 min/dive (SD = 13.1, n = 5090). Differences in mean dive depth, dive duration, and surface intervals among turtles were not attributable to differences in body size (length or mass). Distinct diel periodicity was observed in dive behavior; submergence intervals were longest at dawn, declined throughout the day, and were shortest at dusk. Night dives (19:00–04:59) were shorter, shallower, and more frequent than day dives (05:00–18:59). Dive depth was less variable at night than during the day. The dive pattern suggests nocturnal foraging within the deep scattering layer, a hypothesis that is corroborated by seasonal weight loss data.

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There is growing evidence that small-scale, coastal, passive net fisheries may be the largest single threat to some sea turtle populations. We review assessments of turtle interactions in these fisheries, and experiments on gear-technology approaches (modifying gear designs, materials and fishing methods) to mitigate turtle by-catch, available from a small number of studies and fisheries. Additional assessments are needed to improve the limited understanding of the relative degree of risk coastal net fisheries pose to turtle populations, to prioritize limited conservation resources and identify suitable mitigation opportunities. Whether gear technology provides effective and commercially viable solutions, alone or in combination with other approaches, is not well-understood. Fishery-specific assessments and trials are needed, as differences between fisheries, including in gear designs; turtle and target species, sizes and abundance; socioeconomic context; and practicality affect efficacy and suitability of bycatch mitigation methods. Promising gear-technology approaches for gillnets and trammel nets include: increasing gear visibility to turtles but not target species, through illumination and line materials; reducing net vertical height; increasing tiedown length or eliminating tiedowns; incorporating shark-shaped silhouettes; and modifying float characteristics, the number of floats or eliminating floats. Promising gear-technology approaches for pound nets and other trap gear include: replacing mesh with ropes in the upper portion of leaders; incorporating a turtle releasing device into traps; modifying the shape of the trap roof to direct turtles towards the location of an escapement device; using an open trap; and incorporating a device to prevent sea turtle entrance into traps.

Abstract. Adapting state-space models (SSMs) to telemetry data has been helpful for dealing with location error and for modeling animal movements. We used a combination of two hierarchical Bayesian SSMs to estimate movement pathways from Argos satellite-tag data for 15 juvenile loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) in the western Mediterranean Sea, and to probabilistically assign locations to one of two behavioral movement types and relate those behaviors to environmental features. A Monte Carlo procedure helped propagate location uncertainty from the first SSM into the estimation of behavioral states and environmentbehavior relationships in the second SSM. Turtles using oceanic habitats of the Balearic Sea (n ¼ 9 turtles) within the western Mediterranean were more likely to exhibit ''intensive search'' behavior as might occur during foraging, but only larger turtles responded to variations in seasurface height. This suggests that they were better able than smaller turtles to cue on environmental features that concentrate prey resources or were more dependent on highquality feeding areas. These findings stress the importance of individual heterogeneity in the analysis of movement behavior and, taken in concert with descriptive studies of Pacific loggerheads, suggest that directed movements toward patchy ephemeral resources may be a general property of larger juvenile loggerheads in different populations. We discovered sizebased variation in loggerhead distribution and documented use of the western Mediterranean Sea by turtles larger than previously thought to occur there. With one exception, only individuals .57 cm curved carapace length used the most westerly basin in the Mediterranean (western Albora´n Sea). These observations shed new light on loggerhead migration phenology.

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