In Europe, the loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) is considered by several public policies to require monitoring and conservation measures. France has identified a need for data on the monitoring and assessment of sea turtles and their habitats as part of its public environmental policies, in particular the Habitats Directive and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. The OFB, which is responsible for the BEE D1 DCSMM sea turtle monitoring program, has proposed the creation of a candidate data collection system based on telemetric tracking of sea turtles.
The overall objective of this project is to provide research and development support to those responsible for monitoring and assessing sea turtles and their habitats in the French Mediterranean by collecting and analyzing telemetric tracking data on the movements of loggerhead sea turtles for methodological development purposes.
This objective is broken down into several sub-objectives:
- Identification of the habitats and spatio-temporal use of loggerhead turtle habitats in the French Mediterranean through telemetric tracking of movements.
- Mapping of areas at high risk of interaction between human activities and sea turtles.
- Formulation of recommendations for the implementation of a monitoring strategy using telemetry.
- Methodological development to refine the method for calculating a collision indicator.
