IMIS

During this time, several turtles migrated across the Pacific Ocean, covering more than 11,500 km between Santa Rosalita, Baja California, Mexico (28 degrees 40 minutes N, 114 degrees 14 minutes W), and Sendai Bay, Japan (37 degrees 54 minutes N, 140 degrees 56 minutes E). These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that loggerheads feeding in the eastern Pacific eventually return to nest on western Pacific beaches. Baja California loggerhead turtles have been shown, through molecular genetic analysis and flipper tag returns, to be primarily of Japanese origin. We conclude that loggerhead turtles are capable of transpacific migrations and propose that the band of water between 25 and 30 degrees north latitude, the Subtropical Frontal Zone, may be an important transpacific migratory corridor. Recent findings indicate that juvenile loggerheads in the North Pacific move westward against weak (0.1 - 0.3 km/hr) eastward geostrophic currents, demonstrating that passive drift may not entirely explain the dispersal of loggerheads. Seventeen satellite tagged turtles are included in this dataset. Each turtle is identified by series number, name, species, and life stage. The shortest track consists of 20 locations, and the longest track includes 787 locations. Most of the tracked turtles were adult females, one turtle was an adult male, and the remainder were juveniles.