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.
Kip Evans is an award-winning conservation focused underwater filmmaker and photographer. Kip is based in Carmel, California, not far from Upwell’s headquarters. He works on a range of projects with non-profits or his Mission Blue team telling the stories of the ocean. We were fortunate to spend some time with Kip recently to learn about his underwater experiences with turtles and more.
One of the first things people say to me when they find out I’m a scientist that studies sea turtles is: “Wow, you are living everyone’s childhood dream!”. I am living my childhood dream, though my day-to-day work may be different from what most people expect when they think of being a marine biologist. So, what is it really like?
Arribada roughly translates to “arrival”, but in so many ways, it’s an understatement. Turtle nesting on Ostional Beach occurs year-round, but hits a peak in the rainy season between August and November. Each month on the last quarter of the full moon, olive ridley sea turtles gather off the coast of Ostional and prepare to lay their eggs en masse. The mass nesting of the arribada corresponds with the evening high tide, and for a few nights each month hundreds to thousands of sea turtles emerge from the sea to lay their eggs.
Inspired by Upwell’s collection of citizen science data to advance protections for sea turtles at sea, three biologists--informally dubbed “the turtle girls”--resolved to join the caravan of boats on the Baja Haha sailing rally to teach sailors and cruisers how to identify and report sea turtle sightings during the Baja Ha-Ha.
The leatherbacks have returned to the central California coast! In partnership with NOAA, Upwell is conducting aerial surveys to locate critically endangered leatherback turtles in California's waters. Learn more about graduate student, Sharon Hsu's first-hand experience as an Upwell Observer aboard these flights.
