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Dott.ssa Chiara Caruso (Responsible of Tartanet)
Dott.ssa Lucia Venturi (President of Regional Park of
Maremma)
Dott. Sergio Ventrella (Tuscany Observatory of Biodiversity)
Tuscany is the heart of the
Cetacean Sanctuary
“Pelagos”, whose
borders extend from the
coast of Tuscany and
Liguria to Corse and
France.
“Pelagos” and the Tuscany
Observatory of
Biodiversity play a key
role in the study and
protection of cetaceans
and sea turtles.
The Tartanet Center of
Talamone (Tuscany, Italy) is
dedicated to recovery,
rehabilitation and release of
sea turtles hospitalized in its
facility.
The Center is aimed to increase
the knowledge of these
animals, to promote
protection and to implement
environmental education.
Indeed, the
students learn
the biology of
the sea turtle
while they are
feeding them, as
you can see in
the following
video!
This feeding
activity give
us the great
opportunity
to see a
turtle face to
face!
….. and to touch the
little one !
Loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta)
is a marine reptile, belonging to the
family Cheloniidae .
It is an oceanic turtle distributed
throughout the world.
It spends most of its life in saltwater and
estuarine habitats, feeding mainly on
bottom-dwelling invertebrates.
The females briefly coming ashore to lay
eggs, but they have a low reproductive
rate and reaches sexual maturity in the
middle of their lifespan. In addition, the
eggs
and young loggerheads are
especially vulnerable to terrestrial
organisms.
In the adulthood, their great size limits
predation to large marine animals, such
as sharks.
Loggerheads are considered an endangered species and are
protected by the International Union for the Conservation of
Nature.
They are threatened by:
Accidental fishing and intentional capture
Loss of suitable nesting beaches
Introduction of exotic predators
Plastic and garbage accidentally ingested
Efforts to restore their numbers will require international
cooperation, since the turtles roam vast areas of ocean and
critical nesting beaches are scattered across several countries.
Project CARESAT
Biology Department of Pisa University
The project aims to use satellite-tracking techniques (Argos
system) to study the movements and migrations of
loggerhead sea turtles in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Turtles are equipped with special radio-transmitters glued
to their carapace, whose signals are received by satellites.
Then, various processing centers use this data to localize
the turtles and transmit this information to users who are
monitoring the animals.
The identification of the most frequented marine areas is
very important for the conservation of sea turtles.