Within the framework of the activities of the Aquarium La Rochelle, the Centre d'Etudes et de Soins pour les Tortues Marines (C.E.S.T.M.) welcomes every year marine turtles stranded or captured accidentally. After long months of care and convalescence, the animals use the return of fine weather to go back to the ocean.
Follow the course of a sea turtle, from observation to return to the ocean.
Discover the number of individuals who have been able to return to their natural environment in 32 years of C.E.S.T.M. activities.
2023 is an exceptional year for the La Rochelle Aquarium! Stranded between November and April on the coasts of the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay, 15 loggerhead turtles Caretta caretta joined the ocean on June 8, 2023 after their stay at the Center for Studies and Care for Marine Turtles (CESTM) in the Aquarium. The Centre’s team, its scientific partners and several school classes gathered to witness the new departure of these residents.
Since 2008, the CESTM has been conducting a satellite monitoring programme for some of the marine turtles it rehabilitates.
It makes it possible to follow in quasi real time the turtles handed over to the Ocean. Thus, their positions recorded during their journey, combined with the data of various oceanographic parameters, make it possible to highlight the factors which influence their journey offshore (temperature, surface currents…).
Of the 8 marine turtles that returned to their natural environment in 2020, three have been equipped with a satellite transmitter and one of them is still working. It allows to follow the route of Kemen.
