The Incredible Life of Silvia, Chelonia mydas
After years of monitoring, scientists managed to confirm that this green turtle successfully managed to migrate from Peru to Galapagos to nest on the beaches of Santa Cruz Island.
Silvia. That was the name that the Peruvian scientists from the Center for the Integral Conservation of Marine Ecosystems of the Eastern Pacific, Ecoceanic, gave to a green turtle (Chelonia mydas) that, after years of follow-up, managed to successfully complete its first migratory crossing, from the beaches of northern Peru to the Galapagos in Ecuador, to reproduce.
The first time the scientists at Ecoceánica saw Silvia was in July 2012. It measured 75.6 centimeters and was a subadult turtle swimming in the waters of the Ñuro, north of Peru. The following year, in August, they saw her again in the same place. In 2014 they saw it twice, in August and in November. Four years passed then without news of Silvia, who at that time was only called as the “92”. The number represented the order in which it had been recorded by the Ecoceanica scientists.
In total, the researchers registered 350 turtles over nine years of studies on the beaches of Ñuro and Órganos. In March 2018 they saw her again and by then she had become an adult of 90 centimeters. It was then that, for the first time, the scientists were able to confirm that it was a female. An email sent a year later brought the latest news from Silvia: on February 6, 2019 it was found nesting on Las Bachas beach on Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos Islands.
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Photo from Maritime Herald.
