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NEWPORT, R.I. – A Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Newport scientist and support contractor have a new model for estimating loggerhead sea turtle abundance.
Since early 2019, Environmental Branch employees Laura Sparks, a resident of Foster, Rhode Island, and Andrew DiMatteo, a support contractor and a resident of Berthoud, Colorado, have worked to measure the density, abundance and distribution of loggerhead turtles — a globally vulnerable species — in the Mediterranean Sea. The model, which was adopted from a similar process used with other marine mammal species, was finalized in mid-2020.
“Our model accounts for juvenile and adult loggerheads in the Mediterranean Sea regardless of their population of origin,” Sparks said. “This provides the first estimate of population abundance unrelated to demographic estimates, which are usually derived from data on nesting beaches.”