What’s going on with Bevelyn?

If you’ve been tracking Bevelyn through our website on seaturtle.org since her release in Nov 2007, you might have noticed that she stopped transmitting a signal on May 29, 2008. Please don’t be discouraged…all hope is not lost! While it is true we can no longer track her on her amazing journey(s) it is likely that one of two things happened: She was mating and the antenna got clipped (less likely) or she nested a couple of times and the transmitter battery died (more likely).

A wise and knowledgeable person explained it to me like this:

Let’s think of your cell phone and it’s battery for a minute. When you use the cell phone, it uses some of the battery’s energy, a little bit at a time, but only when you use the phone. Now think about when you have no signal bars, and the phone is searching and searching for a signal. It burns up the battery pretty quickly, right? Now how does that apply to Bev’s satellite transmitter? Read on and find out!

The transmitter is “on” all the time but only transmits when the salt water switch is open (i.e. she’s above the water). When that happens, the transmitter (more accurately called a Platform Transmitter Terminal or PTT) sends a burst transmission every 45 - 60 seconds. Keeping in mind that the PTT needs to be out of the water for almost a minute BEFORE it sends its first transmission, the chances of it transmitting are slim if the turtle is actively swimming and only coming up for short breaths. If, however, the turtle is actively foraging, (deep dives followed by several minutes at the surface)then there’s more of a chance of her being at the surface long enough for the PTT to transmit. Several dives like this with a transmission and we get a good location class (LC) “hit.” Still, the PTT is probably only sending a few to a dozen or so bursts per day.

Now imagine that she comes out to nest. From the time she’s in the surf to the time she re-enters the water, the PTT is sending bursts at least once per minute. Over a couple of hours the PTT will transmit 100-200 times and that will cook the battery pretty quickly. Think of each nesting event as taking 1-2 months of transmitter life off a PTT as compared to a non-nesting turtle.

There were two very weak transmissions on the night of 6/12 and early morning of 6/13 that suggest that in either of the scenarios above, she was out again and nesting long enough for
the two weak signals to get through when a satellite was directly overhead. But they’re low LCs so they’re not reliable enough to plot.

So on the bright side, and as appears from her tracking, Bevelyn has nested this season, probably multiple times, in Florida! We can be happy about that for sure!

Because we can no longer track her, Bevelyn has been removed from adoption eligibility. Thank you to all who adopted and supported her! Your donation enabled us to get a glimpse into her life after her release from her remarkable recovery at the GSTC! We have 3 other turtles still eligible for adoption(Option#1-Griffin; Option#2-Vida or Spitfire)…please check out our website for more information on these turtles! And now you can even purchase these adoptions on our online store!

Sincerely,
Stefanie Ouellette
Education and Field Coordinator