The hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) is the most endangered sea turtle in the Eastern Caribbean. The NPS` Buck Island Reef National Monument’s Sea Turtle Research and Monitoring Program has been conducting an intensive tagging program for sea turtles since 1988, focusing on the hawksbill since 1990. We will utilize capture histories of individual nesting females, both within and between years, to partition changes in numbers observed over time into component vital rates (survival, breeding probability, number of nests laid per female per year), and address hypotheses about changes in these parameters over time. Finally, we will use the saturation tagging data that has been collected at Buck Island Reef to assess the amount and type of effort needed for future monitoring of similar sea turtle populations, to achieve reasonable precision. MORE
U.S. Department of the Interior |
U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://www.fort.usgs.gov/brdscience/pobs1.aspx?topic= Reptiles
Page Contact Information: Paul_Geissler@usgs.gov
