Recent News
Photos: MSA Students Raise Money For BZSThursday, May 17, 2018
In March of this year, the students of the two Mount Saint Agnes’ grade 3 classes held their “Toad-ally Terrific tag sale”, which was a fundraising event to support the Amphibian Project that is supported by the Bermuda Zoological Society [BZS].
Cane toad decline results in pest boom
Thursday, May 10, 2018
Bermuda’s “safest form of pest control” is under threat from water pollution, a researcher who has tracked the island’s cane toad population for about 20 years warned yesterday.
Report: Some Fish At Critically Low Levels
Thursday, May 10, 2018
Historically abundant predatory fish such as groupers and snappers remain at critically low numbers on Bermuda’s reefs based on international standards, according to a recently released report that monitored their status and trends by Bermudian scientist Dr Thaddeus Murdoch and his local team of research associates through the Bermuda Reef Ecosystem Assessment and Mapping [BREAM] Programme.
Cane toad decline results in pest boom
Thursday, May 10, 2018
Bermuda’s “safest form of pest control” is under threat from water pollution, a researcher who has tracked the island’s cane toad population for about 20 years warned yesterday.
Videos: Stevenson starts work on Whale film
Tuesday, May 08, 2018
Whale researcher Andrew Stevenson has started work on a follow-up to his acclaimed documentary ‘Where the Whales Sing’ – which for the first time will include unique aerial footage.
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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.