ABSTRACT For threatened animals with distinct breeding and foraging areas, it is important to identify key habitats for appropriate conservation and management. Turkey rookeries represent the northernmost limits for green turtle breeding activity, though knowledge about their post‐breeding distributions is limited to date. We tracked 14 adult female green turtles breeding at Akyatan Beach, Turkey, using satellite transmitters. Ten turtles successfully reached five foraging areas along the Egyptian and Libyan coasts. Two turtles stopped over at Bardawil Lake and the Gulf of Sirte, while signals from two others were lost between the Gulf of Arab and the Gulf of Bomba. Migration ranged from 13 to 53 days (mean 31 days) at mean speeds of 2.2 km/h. The home ranges of 13 green turtles during the inter‐nesting period were located along the eastern Mediterranean bordering the Turkish coast. The mean core home range was 22.07 ± 24.22 km 2 (range = 2–82 km 2 ), and the core home ranges of female individuals during the inter‐nesting period were focussed along the shores of Akyatan Beach. At the foraging sites, two turtles had strongly overlapping core home ranges at Lake Bardawil. Similarly, the home ranges of two turtles in Libya also showed significant overlap in the Gulf of Sirte. To effectively protect green sea turtles in this region, conservation efforts should focus not only on breeding areas but also on foraging sites.
Yılmaz et al. (Mon,) studied this question.