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Earth

Some sea turtles stay close to home

By Jeff Hecht

2 January 2008

Not all sea turtles undertake epic migrations, contrary to what you might think, a fact that could help efforts to conserve them. Green sea turtles living off the remote Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean travel only short distances every year to new feeding grounds – a trek of between 200 and 3000 kilometres is standard for turtles in other colonies.

Scott Whiting of Biomarine International, a consultancy based at Charles Darwin University in Darwin, Australia, used satellite tracking to study six female green sea turtles breeding on North Cocos Island. After laying its eggs, each turtle swam only about 35…

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