Yoshi has travelled a total distance of 38 898 km (24 158 miles) over the last 860 days, which still gives an average of 45 km per day, for 2 years and 131 days straight.
Australia (28 April 2020) – Yoshi is venturing past the beautiful and remote Eighty Mile Beach, a 220 kilometre stretch of mainly pastoral and indigenous land. This area is an Australian state marine park and historically, and still today, used to collect natural pearl oyster shells.
The Bidyandanga indigenous community is the closest to Yoshi at the moment, and Dr Scott Whiting of Western Australia’s Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, who is following Yoshi’s travels right there in Australia, has notified the community’s rangers of Yoshi’s presence. The Bidyandanga community is the largest aboriginal community in Western Australia with approximately 750 residents of 5 different language groups. The closest town is Broome, 100km south of where Yoshi is currently, and the closest coastal access to this area is about a 2-hour drive away.
Yoshi is certainly practising social distancing from humans at the moment. Still, she finds herself in an area which supports flatback, and olive ridley turtles in deeper waters, with green and hawksbill turtles, found inshore on the rocky reefs and mangrove areas.
Australia is home to 6 of the 7 sea turtle species, and these ancient mariners carry great cultural, spiritual and economic importance to coastal indigenous people. All sea turtles are protected in Australia.
Yoshi continues to amaze us! Her satellite tag (a Wildlife Computers tag hosted by CLS Argos) continues to deliver incredible data, and together with the South African Department of Environment, Forestry & Fisheries: Oceans and Coast, we have received more than 22 000 messages from more than 5 500 satellite passes. The circumference of the world is just over 40 000 km, so in not too long now, Yoshi’s journey would equal travelling right around the globe! We have been tracking her for 20 640 hours straight – which makes her a double-master at ocean adventuring.
Yoshi is definitely the world’s most famous animal traveller by now, and we could compare her to many incredible and famous female human travellers, especially now in a time where globally we can only take imaginary journeys.
From Jeanne Barét, the first woman to have circumnavigated the world (disguised as a man though) in the late 1700s, to Nellie Bly who travelled right around the globe in 72 days in 1889 (a real-life Phileas Fogg), and also Aloha Wanderwell who drove around the world in the 1920s over 5 years, during which she raked up many great adventures and experiences.
We keep wondering, where to next? Nesting season in the Southern Hemisphere is over now. However, it is still possible that she might make her way up to the loggerhead nesting sites in Queensland for the next season towards the end of this year, or she could just be loving exploring the beautiful and safe Australian coastline. Maybe, just maybe, like the famous great white shark Nicole’s trans-oceanic return migration, she will return to South Africa, to the incredible nesting sites in northern KwaZulu-Natal and contribute to the next generation of little Yoshi’s right here close to her home country of 20 years.
Even if she is not from the local genetic loggerhead population, and if so won’t be nesting here, she certainly received South African citizenship long ago. We love this turtle, her incredible story, her brilliant navigational skills, her passion for life, her bravery and how she is inspiring the whole world to be more ocean aware.
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A very big thank you to the wonderful Dr Scott Whiting and Dr Sabrina Fosette-Halot and their teams from the Northwest Shelf Flatback Turtle Conservation Program in Western Australia for the ongoing support and interest, and to Sarika Singh and Darrell Anders from DEFF: Oceans and Coast for the collaboration as well as Prof. Ronel Nel and Dr George Hughes for their regular input on Yoshi’s ocean adventure.
Let’s hope that tag continues to send us messages for at least another few months. Travel well, Yoshi!
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