In September 2025, the collaborative Upwell and NOAA leatherback monitoring team tagged our first leatherback in the California Current since 2022! The adult male leatherback weighing 438 kg (almost 1,000 pounds) was fitted with satellite and acoustic tags to collect critical data on movements and habitat use. Read more about what Ricky has been up to since he was tagged in September.
In late October, a collaborative team of researchers from Two Oceans Aquarium Foundation and Upwell took a boat into the swift Agulhas Current, the southwest boundary current of the Indian Ocean that runs down the east coast of South Africa. There, they released 12 tiny loggerhead turtles with satellite tags attached to their carapace (top shells) in an effort to understand how these turtles are using this oceanic highway. See where these turtles have traveled over their first weeks in the ocean!
Nuno Vasco Rodrigues is a Marine Biologist and researcher at MARE IPLeiria. He was named “Conservation Photographer of the Year” by Ocean Geographic Society in 2021. For the past three years, Nuno has photographed Upwell’s work tagging juvenile loggerhead turtles in the Azores Archipelago in partnership with the COSTA Project and the University of the Azores, which is part of Upwell’s Lost Years Initiative. Nuno took some time to chat with us about the highlights and challenges of documenting sea turtle releases underwater.
With a team of collaborators, we tested new specially-designed prototypes of Lotek microsatellite tags on 160 juvenile sea turtles of four species in the North Atlantic. The data from these tags was published in a new article, "Novel Microsatellite Tags Hold Promise for Illuminating the Lost Years in Four Sea Turtle Species." We sat down with lead-author Tony Candela to talk about this article, his process as lead-author, and the important implications of these findings for the bio-logging community.
When fishermen and researchers collaborate, they create opportunities to amplify efforts for the research and conservation of sea turtles. This past spring, Upwell participated in these efforts by providing a satellite tag for Liam Neythan, a leatherback sea turtle that was saved in Sinaloa, Mexico. Our collaborators, the fishers Edmundo Rafael Garcías Burgos and Mariano García Olivas, as well as Dr. Alan Zavala Norzagaray and the CIIDIR IPN Unidad Sinaloa are the key collaborators and heroes in this story.
In January, a collaborative team of researchers from the Two Oceans Aquarium Foundation and Upwell motored out into the swift Agulhas Current — the southwest boundary current of the Indian Ocean that runs along the east coast of South Africa — and released 12 tiny loggerhead turtles, each fitted with a satellite tag on their carapace. This was the fourth release the team has conducted together, including one previous release in the Agulhas Current and two off the Cape of South Africa.
The 44th International Sea Turtle Symposium was hosted in Kona, Hawaii from February 28-March 6, 2026, with more than 700 participants from around the world. The Symposium is a unique opportunity for the sea turtle conservation community to come together and engage with complex and sometimes contested questions, and critically examine how sea turtle conservation is evolving in a rapidly changing world. As in past years, Upwell Researchers were excited to participate.
At Upwell, we’re always seeking new ways to mobilize data to power sea turtle conservation—but sometimes data is scarce or doesn’t exist. Predictive models can help us fill in data gaps by using algorithms to explore what we can’t observe directly in the wild through monitoring or tagging. “I’m a big proponent of using models to answer questions that are hard to tackle in the field.” Says Upwell Researcher Anna Ortega. Anna recently created a model that can be used to simulate how changes in ocean temperature and food availability affect a leatherback’s ability to grow and reach reproductive size.
Dr. Heather Harris was invited to participate in the The Seattle Aquarium's Lightning Talk series in the session on sea turtles. During this Lightning Talk, five amazing speakers gave a five-minute presentation followed by a post-talk discussion answering audience questions.
In September 2025, the collaborative Upwell and NOAA leatherback monitoring team tagged our first leatherback in the California Current since 2022! The adult male leatherback weighing 438 kg (almost 1,000 pounds) was fitted with satellite and acoustic tags to collect critical data on movements and habitat use. Read more about what Ricky has been up to since he was tagged in September.
The Seattle Aquarium presented Upwell Wildlife Veterinarian Dr. Heather Harris with their 2025 Conservation Research Award for her conservation work and innovative research protecting sea turtles. Since 2004, this award has honored individuals who are leaders and innovators in marine conservation research by recognizing them for their dedication to advancing our knowledge of ocean and coastal health, as well as inspiring others to become ocean advocates and the next generation of conservation researchers.
Much of the current telemetry data collected by tagging hawksbills is from adult females, due to the fact that they are easiest to tag when they crawl up the beaches to nest. To expand our knowledge of small juvenile hawksbill movements, Upwell teamed up with ProTECTOR, Inc., an organization with the goal of advancing our understanding of sea turtle biology and ecology through research throughout the coasts of Honduras. In early July the collaborative team tagged eight juvenile hawksbills with micro-satellite tags. The turtles were then released just off of the northeast reef of the Bay Islands, with some making impressive journeys.
One of the biggest challenges in protecting sea turtles is that they are constantly on the move. All sea turtle species make migrations (big or small) from their nesting grounds to foraging areas, requiring coordinated conservation efforts between all territories that they cross through. For example, the USA, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Russia participate in the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to protect the bird species that travel regularly across their borders. But what happens when the area that needs protecting doesn’t belong to any country?
At the end of June, Upwell Executive Director Dr. George Shillinger joined our Aquarium La Rochelle collaborators to tag and release 9 rehabilitated juvenile turtles. So far, about half of the turtles have left the bay swimming slightly northward, while the other half are taking their time. You can read more about each of the turtles, like where they were rescued and what care they received before their journey back into the ocean in the info cards made by the Aquarium below.
