Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: all
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Satellite telemetry is being used to learn about the movements and foraging behavior of seas turtles. Little is known about the foraging characteristics of the hawksbill turtles nesting on the islands of St. Kitts and Nevis, an important nesting site for hawksbill turtles in the eastern Caribbean. To examine the migration and foraging behavior of hawksbill turtles a switching state–space model (SSSM) was used to estimate the behavioral state of tracked locations. Between 2006 and 2022, satellite transmitters were attached to 28 post-nesting hawksbill turtles. Internesting, migrating and foraging activity periods were determined based on the SSSM. Of the satellite tagged turtles, 25 were tracked long enough to establish a foraging area and 21 provided internesting movements. Turtles were tracked between 83 and 2,171 days, displaying migration distances between 5.3 and 2,799.5 km, with an average speed of 44.6 km day^-1, and an average navigational efficiency of 75%. Nevis hawksbills crossed through 29 different Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), including zones with legal sea turtle fisheries or an exemption for traditional subsistence use. Core foraging areas (KDE 50% Percentage Volume Contour) ranged between 3.8 – 69.0 km², with turtles occupying up to three core areas. Of the turtles with an identified foraging centroid, nearly 25% were within a Marine Protected Area (MPA), while 20% were within a legal sea turtle fishery EEZ. Of the 21 turtles with an internesting area, 11 were closer to a different nesting beach than the one where they were encountered nesting. Internesting core area ranged from 1.9 – 28.2 km², with an average centroid distance to shore of 1.4 km, and average distance to the nearest nesting beach of 3.0 km. While MPAs are providing protection for some foraging areas, a similar number of foraging areas are with EEZs that allow either a legal or traditional use take of sea turtles. Hawksbills nesting on Nevis disperse to local, regional, and Caribbean wide foraging grounds, emphasizing the necessity of cooperative efforts to protect turtles and habitats to ensure the recovery of hawksbill turtles throughout the wider Caribbean.