Marine Animals - Archives

A new WWF-coordinated initiative called Blue Corridors for Turtles aims to close critical gaps in marine turtle and ocean conservation. Launched on World Sea Turtle Day, this multi-partner...

Whale sharks are among the world’s most emblematic and vulnerable species, living in the warm oceans of the tropics. In future, climate change could reshuffle their habitats, potentially also...

For the first time in its 50+ year history, the Society for Marine Mammalogy will convene in Australia. This November 11th - 15th, the SMM 2024 Biennial Conference in Perth, Western Australia, will...

Pygmy blue whales are migratory whales of the Southern hemisphere. Their migration leads them into areas where they can be threaten by anthropogenic activities. Argos satellite telemetry can help in...

Fin whales are a large species of whale, which behaviour and stocks are still uncertain. Tracking them using Argos telemetry tags enables to better assess...

Upwell works to better understand how sea turtles use different marine environments at various life history stages in order to reduce the threats they face at sea. However, collecting data on a...

Red king crabs can be tracked using pop-up tags which release and surface after a scheduled time. However, once at the surface, they may not be located immediately, which introduces an important...

Some marine areas, such as the Wadden Sea, along the North Sea coasts of Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, are of special interest. Among the species found there, the harbour porpoises are...

Flatback turtles are marine turtles endemic to the Australian continental shelf. Few information is available on them, which hinder conservation measures. Satellite tracking and stable isotope...

Walruses are large marine mammal living around the Arctic Ocean. The population from Franz Josef Land archipelago has scarcely been studied while being important component of their ecosystem. Argos...

Tracking leatherback turtles can help in protecting them at both a local scale, close to their nesting beach, and a basin-scale, when they migrate. The population from the Gulf of Guinea is...

Southern Ocean seals are frequently tracked marine animals. They thus provide a lot of environmental data on an otherwise poorly observed ocean. This includes bathymetry of the Antarctica...

Harbour seals living in the North Sea are exposed to a heavy ship traffic. New Argos archival tags enable to record ambient sounds, so that noise exposures can be quantified at the seals’ level. A...

Bottlenose dolphins have been studied more in shallow waters than in deep ones. However, they do live in deep waters, for example around the Bermuda Island. Monitoring their diving behavior there...

Oceanic manta rays are found around the tropical open oceans. Their presence and behaviour in the East of the Atlantic Ocean was poorly known, and has been investigated using Argos satellite...

Turtles in the Gulf of Mexico experience major hurricanes. How they respond to such extreme events is a puzzle whose answers would contribute to the conservation of these threatened and endangered...

Green turtles are found along the West African upwelling. A network of Marine Protected Areas has been established during the past 25 years. Its efficiency towards protecting green turtles can be...

European eels are a critically endangered species. They have a complex life-cycle with their spawning area thought to be in the Sargasso Sea. A study managed to track them to their breeding place...

Assessing whether an endangered species visits the protected areas – or not – is an important indicator of their relevance. Tracking of loggerhead turtles in the Mediterranean Sea show that...

Beluga whales are Arctic cetacean very sensitive to noises, including  underwater ship noises. For a long time, scarcity of such ships in the region meant it wasn’t a concern. With ice-free routes...

A new tag dedicated to large whale has been developped and tested. It enables to record dive behaviors, using a software detection event to better summarize and compress the data to be used during...

At the end of March 2022, Cristina Rodríguez-Cabello researcher of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO) in Santander (Spain), was working at her Centre when she received an unexpected yet...

Loggerhead turtles can forage either on continental shelf or in the open ocean. The North Pacific population, nesting whole in Japan show both behaviours. Their foraging areas are pinpointing using...

Harp seal juveniles leave their native ice pack to forage and migrate on their own. Tracking them and recording their dive can help understand how they manage their first year. Ultimately, the...

Juvenile sea turtles are cared and rehabilitated at Aquarium La Rochelle, in France. Since 2008, a few of them were equipped with Argos PTTs before being released. Analysis of their tracks could...

WWF has just published a report using 30 years of tracking for a meta-analysis of whale migration routes over all the oceans. This map of “migration highways” should help in protecting whales in...

Ringed seals are dependent on sea ice. Throughout the Arctic, including around the Svalbard Archipelago, sea ice is declining rapidly, thus threatening these seals. Their use of a coastal lagoon was...

Argos can help in understanding an endangered species behavior, by providing with locations but also collecting other data measured by a wide range of possible sensors. Some populations of beluga...

Franciscana dolphins are small cetaceans living along the South American coast. They are threatened, in particular from anthropogenic activities, including fishing gear. Argos can help to better...

Adelie penguins live and breed around Antarctica. As with all penguins, they forage in a three-dimensional environment, ranging horizontally at-sea and diving vertically to capture prey. A recent...

A large population of green turtles is found in Western Australia. Using a database of tracks enables scientists to model their behaviour and help in deciding the protection regulations to enforce....

Animal tracking with Argos began in the 1980s. Improved techniques and satellite coverage now allow for much more tracking, with better resolutions. However, old tracks analysed with current methods...

Manatees can live in rivers. However, in Africa, dams have been built over rivers, so that mitigation and modifications should be made to let the manatees come and go with the wet and dry seasons. A...

Sea turtle rehabilitation centres are becoming increasingly important to threatened sea turtle populations around the world. However, one key question is whether rehabilitation is actually helpful...

One of the most frequent rationale to fit animals with tracking devices is to help in conservation actions and regulations. In the case of marine animals, is this argument only (or mostly) a wish,...

Dugongs are vulnerable herbivorous marine mammals living in tropical and subtropical coastal waters, including in coral reef lagoons. Their behaviour there is however little known. Argos enabled to...

Tracking the behaviour of a large number of juvenile green turtles in contrasting environments using satellite telemetry enables to show behavioural differences across individuals. The green turtle...

Dolphins do have a nightlife, but visual observation techniques cannot fully capture this. Also, coastal populations of dolphins sometimes occupy complex, labyrinthine habitats. Here too...

An essential part of animal conservation is knowing and understanding their behavior. More than 500 turtles are tracked every month with Argos so that scientists can identify feeding and nesting...

Did you know that seals are able to learn the melody of the Star Wars theme? Or that scientific studies based on Argos tracking data have confirmed they are great migrators? The grey seal, long...

Baleen whales are highly migratory, going from low latitude in Winter to high-latitude waters in Summer. Satellite telemetry such as Argos has improved the knowledge of their distribution and...

CESTM (Centre d’Études et de Soins pour les Tortues Marines) coordinates the French Eastern Atlantic Marine Turtle Network and welcomes all marine turtles found stranded or in distress drifting or...

Weddell seals are the most southerly breeding mammal species. They are found among other places in the Weddell Sea, but their behaviour and foraging strategies are not well-known, in an area itself...