 | | George Duffield photos |
Since 2004, PRETOMA, the Costa Rican sister organization of The Sea Turtle Restoration Project, has teamed up with the Shark Research Institute to carry out a five-year shark census in Cocos Island, and study the migratory movements of the sharks that live there. Each year, expeditions have visited the island with research focusing on the short and long-range movements of schooling scalloped hammerhead sharks. STRP began to assist with this research in 2007, and has helped organize research expeditions since 2007. In total, nearly 150 sharks have been tagged with acoustic telemetry and 6 acoustic receivers are currently deployed on the island.
 
To expand the connections between scuba divers and Cocos Island research
and conservation, Sea Turtle Restoration Project is now partnering with
nonprofit Project Aware "Protecting Our Ocean Planet - One Dive at a
Time." Learn more about Project Aware at www.projectaware.org.
 In March 2009, STRP and PRETOMA began research on sea turtles of the Cocos. The first two satellite transmitters were attached to green sea turtles at Cocos, and on this trip, several addition sea turtle satellite transmitters will be deployed in the future.
The need for this data is critical to our ongoing efforts to protect the Pacific leatherback worldwide and to support our efforts to protect Costa Rica's mainland nesting populations of sea turtles.
Soon we will be launching additional campaign activities to compel greater protection for all these species from longlining and other industrial fishing technologies that are threatening a vast array of marine species. Please sign up for our action alerts so we can let you know how and when you can help.
Lastly, if you are an experienced scuba diver, you can join one of our upcoming sea turtle and shark tagging expeditions. For more information on the trips, click here.
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