The Two Ocean’s Aquarium shared news that Pan’s satellite had transmitted its final signal, two years after his release.
South Africa (10 June 2024) – Pan was one of three rehabilitated turtles released in July 2022 and as of now, his satellite has stopped transmitting, but he still swims freely and is loving the icy Atlantic Ocean currents most!
Pan was rescued in 2019 as a tiny hatchling but due to his poor health, needed to remain at the Two Oceans Aquarium for several years, being slowly rehabilitated. When he arrived, he was only 49g and he had a persistent ear infection. When all the other hatchlings were released, Pan had to stay behind.
“Worryingly, the ear infection that Pan had been battling had moved into his skull and evolved into a nasty abscess. Our veterinary team did a great deal of research and decided to implant antibiotic beads into Pan’s ear to allow for a continuous slow release of medication. This was an incredibly unusual and novel procedure to do for a sea turtle!” – Talitha Noble, Conservation Manager at the Turtle Conservation Centre
When the innovative slow-release medicine didn’t help, the team had to perform surgery to remove the entire abscess.
“Thanks to this surgery, Pan recovered to full strength and was declared ready for release after almost five years of rehabilitation. Together with two other loggerhead turtles, (Caddy and Donny), Pan was part of an exciting satellite tracking research opportunity. These three young turtles were fitted with satellite tags and released from three different sites in South Africa. The aim of this was to see how each turtle behaved after its release and where it travelled to. Researchers following the tagged turtles were hopeful that this project would allow them to gain valuable insight into the wild behaviours of these individual young loggerheads after their long stints of rehabilitation.”
Since his release, the team has been excited to watch Pan’s journey unfold. His satellite showed him cruising in the Atlantic Ocean, often going in circles, with no real destination in mind just yet. They figure he is more food-motivated and has been focused on good grazing areas.
“In addition, the satellite tracking data showed that he generally did a really good job of staying away from the very cold coastal water and found himself in an average water temperature of around 18 degrees Celcius. Pan maintained a consistent swimming speed of about 19km per day and in the 631 days the team was able to track him, he covered 12 000km!”
Now that his satellite has stopped transmitting, the team won’t be so sure where he is headed but should he ever be found along his journey, his satellite and tags will be identifiable and they team could be updated that way.
Pan is swimming freely, motivated by his belly, but hopefully, someday he will find himself a mate and help expand the population once more.
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