Researchers must also examine the number of individual turtles coming to nest each season. New turtles were perhaps hatchlings 10 years ago. They have now reached sexual maturity and are showing up to nest for the first time. You actually can count the number of individual turtles on the Las Baulas Leatherback Turtle Project Web site. Scroll down to the Turtle Calendar, and count all the boldface tag numbers.
Boldface indicates turtles coming ashore for the first time each season.
Dr. Reina cautions that it's too early to get excited. This may have decreased their numbers during 1998-1999, resulting in the unusually low number of 120. The real threats to the survival of turtles, Paladino, Reina, and Spotila all agree, are inappropriate fishing methods in which turtles are needlessly injured or killed in fishing nets. By attaching transmitters to leatherbacks that send signals to satellites, the Las Baulas research scientists have been able to track the movement of turtles and follow their migrations from Playa Grande into the Central Pacific. They have found that many of the tracked turtles hit a zone in the Pacific where the transmitters and the turtles seem to disappear.