Recent News
Video: Shark Makes ‘Visit’ To Shelly Bay BeachMonday, June 04, 2018
Yet another video of a shark has gone viral, this time with footage appearing to show the shark coming in close to shore at Shelly Bay Beach.
Say no to Plastics
Friday, June 01, 2018
Today, June 8th, is World Oceans Day, and the theme for this year is the prevention of plastic pollution to encourage healthy oceans. On World Oceans Day, people around our blue planet celebrate and honour the ocean, which connects us all.
Kids donate birthday money to BZS
Friday, June 01, 2018
Instead of spending their birthday money on video games or the latest dolls, on Monday 14th May 11-year-old Oliver "Olly" Cherry and 8-year-old twins Hayleigh and April Cherry presented Dr. Ian Walker, curator of the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo, with a donation of their birthday money to be put towards the Bermuda Zoological Society's education programmes.
Choy goes to “Raw” at the Florida Aquarium
Friday, June 01, 2018
Last month BAMZ Aquarist, Choy Aming, was able to attend the Regional Aquatics Workshop - RAW - at the Florida Aquarium in Tampa, thanks to the funding from the Bermuda Zoological Society. The workshop took place from 14th-18th May, and according to Choy it was an intensive 5 days.
MSA students raise money for the BZS Amphibian Project
Friday, June 01, 2018
On Wednesday, 28th March the students of the two Mount Saint Agnes' grade 3 classes held their "TOAD-ally Terrific tag sale", a fundraising event for the Amphibian Project which is supported by the Bermuda Zoological Society (BZS). After the two-day event, the students were able to raise over $1,300 for the Amphibian Project.
About
GovernanceAbout Us
Newsletter
Latest News
Gift & Bookstore
Contact
General Inquiries
info@bzs.bm
Latest News
All the latest updates and news from the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum, and Zoo, one of Bermuda's leading visitor attractions!
Released: 2/29/2012 9:35 AM EST
Source: Dick Jones Communications
Newswise — Sea turtles have long and complex lives; they can live into their 70s or 80s and they famously return to their birthplace to nest. But new research suggests this isn’t the only big migration in a sea turtle’s life.
“We’re starting to realize that developmental migrations -- ones that sea turtles make before they mature -- are even more amazing,” says Dr. Peter Meylan, professor of natural sciences at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. “They only do it one time, but it can be much longer than the reproductive migrations they do as adults and may involve tens of thousands of kilometers.”
Meylan has been tagging and tracking sea turtles with his wife, Anne Meylan of the Florida Fish & Wildlife Research Institute, and Jennifer Gray and other colleagues from the Bermuda Aquarium. They have compiled the results of long-term capture programs in Caribbean Panama (17 years) and Bermuda (37 years) in a summary paper, “The Ecology and Migrations of Sea Turtles: Tests of the Developmental Habitat Hypothesis,” in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History.
“Bermuda is a place where young turtles go to grow up,” Meylan says. “They arrive there after living out in the ocean. In Bermuda waters they grow from about the size of a dinner plate to the size of a wash tub, and then move on to different, adult habitats.”
For example, some green turtles hatched in Costa Rica were spending their “growing up” years thousands of kilometers away in Barbados, North Carolina and Bermuda before heading off to spend their adulthoods near Nicaragua.
Young turtles have already survived hatching from their untended eggs, escaped hungry predators on their rush to the ocean, and have avoided marine predators once there. This research points to developmental migrations as another vulnerable time for sea turtles.
“Tag-return data from this study suggest that this may be another dangerous time for these turtles, and protection as they move into their adult foraging ranges could be a productive objective of policy change for effective marine turtle conservation,” says Meylan.