Continued deployment in Aldabra - October-December 2021

At the beginning of September 2021, a joint team from Ifremer and CNRS-LIRMM went to Aldabra atoll with the support of the French Navy to deploy the network of receiving stations. With the support of agents from the Seychelles Islands Foundation (SIF) and the Champlain’s crew, three of the five stations were installed during the two and a half days on site.

The last two stations were then deployed autonomously by the SIF, thus covering the entire inner lagoon.

Once the LoRa receiving network was operational, the SIF proceeded to capture and tag ten turtles at sites known to harbour juvenile individuals. The tagging took place between October and December 2021.

In parallel to the tagging, biometric data such as the weight and size of each of the turtles were collected by the SIF and photos for identification of individuals were also taken.

To date, the tags and the network are still functional and the data transmitted by the six juvenile green turtles (Chelonia mydas) and the four hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) as well as the environmental data (depth, water temperature) collected by the tags continue to arrive at Ifremer.