Emergency Rescue: Saving Endangered Turtles

It has been 84 days since his release on 8 December 2023, and Bheni is still going with the motion of the ocean. 

The psychedelic map below shows the surface current - the red is the strongest part of the current and the blue is the weakest. It is remarkable and incredibly beautiful to see Bheni's tracks in relation to these surface currents and little swirling eddies in the southern Indian Ocean! He is sticking with them as though tracing a detailed outline: An amazing illustration of the power of the strong current and Bheni's strategic swimming.

He is averaging 55.7km per day, about 2.3km/hr. This is not any faster than the speed of the current, indicating that he is not spending too much time actively swimming. Instead, it is more likely that Bheni is utilising the speed of the current itself. That's savvy swimming!

To date, Bheni has travelled 4 678km and is about 1 500km offshore from Durban, 1 500km south of Madagascar, and a mere 6 000km away from Australia!

As Bheni has been swimming eastward, he has been passing some magnificent oceanic ridges; mountains on the seafloor created by the movement of tectonic plates. In the tracking map below, you can see these ridges quite clearly! He has swum over the Mozambiquan Ocean Ridge and is currently on the western side of the Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR). A fun fact about this SWIR is that it is one of the slowest spreading ridges on Earth at a rate of roughly 14-15mm per year.

Will Bheni continue to stay in the surface currents or decide to head in a different direction?

As well as tracking our big turtles we released 50 hatchlings over the passed 3 months following successfully passing our pre-release tests!

Thank you for your support