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Why Canada Matters to the World's Largest Sea Turtle · How To Protect The Ocean

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  One of the largest sea turtles on Earth travels thousands of kilometers
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  every year to visit Canada, and it comes here for one reason, jellyfish.
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  This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, your weekday ocean news update.
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  If you care about staying informed on the ocean every single weekday,
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  hit that follow button right now on your favorite podcast app so
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  you don't miss tomorrow's episode.
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  We're gonna be talking about one of my favorite things to look at when I'm on
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  the coastal shores of any ocean, are tide pools, especially off the coast
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  of the Atlantic Ocean, where you get the biggest tides in the world, and
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  you get to see tide pools along there.
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  It's gonna be a lot of fun.
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  Hit that follow button so you don't miss tomorrow's episode.
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  But today, we're answering a question that sounds a little strange.
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  Why would a giant sea turtle leave warm tropical waters and travel all
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  the way to the cold North Atlantic?
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  That's the big question, and the answer tells us a lot about why cold
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  water ecosystems are so special.
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  So meet the leatherback sea turtle, the largest sea turtle on Earth.
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  Unlike any other sea turtles, leatherbacks don't have a hard shell.
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  Instead, they have a flexible leathery back, so hence the
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  name leatherback sea turtle.
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  They can grow over six feet long, and they can weigh hundreds of kilograms, and
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  they are built for long-distance travel.
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  Some leatherback sea turtles cross entire ocean basins, and
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  that's not an exaggeration.
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  Entire oceans.
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  Yet every summer, some of them arrive in the Atlantic Canadian waters,
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  including waters off Nova Scotia.
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  Why?
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  Well, because they're hungry.
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  Most people get excited about jellyfish.
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  Leatherbacks definitely get excited about jellyfish.
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  To a leatherback sea turtle, a jellyfish bloom is like finding an
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  all-you-can-eat buffet at a Vegas casino.
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  And Atlantic Canada often provides exactly that.
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  A 2020 study led by Bailey Nordstrom found that leatherback sea turtle
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  movements are closely linked to availability of jellyfish.
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  In other words, the sea turtles are following food.
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  Now, this is not the only animal that we saw doing this.
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  We heard about the mola mola doing the same thing on Monday's episode.
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  And these guys aren't just wandering.
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  They're actually searching for these food, and they're very good at it.
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  Cold water ecosystems support enormous productivity.
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  Nutrients fuel plankton growth.
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  Plankton helps support jellyfish.
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  Jellyfish helps support the leatherbacks.
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  It's one giant chain of connections.
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  And the leatherback sits near the top of that food chain.
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  What's amazing to me and a lot of other people is that many people don't
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  associate cold oceans with abundance.
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  They imagine cold water as empty water.
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  But that's not what the animals see.
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  Whales come here to feed, seabirds come here to feed, ocean sunfish come
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  here to feed, as we learned on Monday, and leatherbacks come here to feed.
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  They're all responding to the same thing.
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  Food.
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  It's what a lot of people are driven by.
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  It's food.
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  Now, speaking of food, if you are coming here to get that food
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  All right, now let's get back to the episode.
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  So scientists have recently learned even more about what these leatherbacks
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  are doing when they arrive here.
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  It's pretty interesting.
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  A twenty twenty-three study led by Amélie Migneaux used high-resolution
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  tracking data and found that leatherbacks perform complex diving behaviors
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  while feeding in Canadian waters.
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  The turtles aren't just drifting around.
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  They're actually hunting.
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  They're diving.
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  They're searching.
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  They're feeding.
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  And then repeating the process again and again to get as
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  many jellyfish as possible.
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  That means Atlantic Canada isn't just a stopover, it's a destination.
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  And like, to be honest, growing up in Canada, I did not expect sea turtles
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  to come here for a destination.
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  I just thought every once in a while they pop up, maybe they just navigate or
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  they follow maybe some jellyfish in here.
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  But now we know that these leatherback sea turtles are here, like, quite often.
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  It's not only just a destination, it's one of the most important
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  feeding grounds these turtles visit.
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  And that's what I love about this story.
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  When people think about sea turtles, they picture tropical beaches.
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  But one of the world's most impressive sea turtles depends on cold water
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  systems for part of its survival.
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  And that's a pretty good reminder that incredible wildlife
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  exists far beyond the tropics.
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  And cold water places are not empty places.
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  These cold water oceans are productive.
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  They're destinations worth traveling thousands of kilometers
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  to reach in order to get food.
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  And every summer, leatherback sea turtles prove it.
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  Now, just because it's cold water doesn't mean you're not
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  gonna see some amazing animals.
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  So far
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  we talked about giant leatherback sea turtles, we talked about the blue sharks,
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  and we talked about the mola mola.
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  And tomorrow we're gonna talk about maybe some smaller organisms in tide pools.
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  And something that I love to do along the coastline when the tide goes out,
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  you're able to see all these things.
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  And I've seen these in tropical areas, I've seen these in cold
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  water, temperate areas, and they're just wonderful every single time.
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  But that's something that I remember anytime I go on the East Coast, is you
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  get to see these tide pools, and you get to see all these wonderful animals,
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  which we're gonna talk about tomorrow.
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  So hit that follow button so that you can get tomorrow's episode on tide pools.
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  And you'll hear Friday's interview with my coworker at Pisces Oceans, Kristi
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  Burnett, who's gonna talk about growing up along Nova Scotia shores and what
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  it was like to really enjoy cold water species above and below the ocean surface.
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  Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode.
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  If you wanna get ahold of me, you can do so.
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  Just go to the show notes.
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  All my socials are there.
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  You can DM me on Instagram, is where I probably respond.
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  That and TikTok I probably respond the most.
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  But, yeah, get ahold of me.
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  I'd love to continue this conversation.
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  This has been another wonderful episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.
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  Have a great day.
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  We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.