The database contains monthly measurements taken on captive reared sea turtles. Measurements include: straight carapace length nuchal notch to carapace tip, straight carapace width maximum width, body depth maximum, weight.

The database contains records pertaining to sick captive sea turtles, their daily behavior, medications, food offered, food consumed, and water quality.

Satellite tags were deployed on kemps ridley and loggerhead turtles to assess dive behavior to improve estimates of abundance in aerial surveys

This dataset is a study to learn more about the nearshore habitat usage of Kemps ridleys in the northern Gulf of Mexico to address the recent high number of strandings in the area.

The database contains monthly measurements taken on captive reared sea turtles. Measurements include: straight carapace length nuchal notch to carapace tip, straight carapace width maximum width, body depth maximum, weight.

Platform Removal Observer Program Data Underwater explosives are frequently used in the removal of oil and gas platforms. Since 1987, federal regulations required the use of National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) approved observers to perform biological monitoring at the explosive removal of oil and gas structures in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. In that year, the Platform Removal Observer Program was initiated at the NMFS Galveston Laboratory to meet this requirement. Observers document sightings of sea turtles and marine mammals both before and after detonations, recommend delays in detonating explosives when sea turtles and marine mammals are present inside a predetermined impact zone, record the condition of observed animals, and coordinate retrieval of impacted animals for medical examination, rehabilitation, and necropsy. NMFS observers are required to monitor 100% of all explosive structure removals although special rules govern the use of very small charges. Data sets include information on explosive use, aerial and surface survey effort, sea turtle and marine mammal observations, salvage delays caused by biological monitoring requirements, sea state and visibility.

The database is a summary of records of: sea turtle size tags applied release and capture location are summarized in this database which is derived from paper data sheets submitted to the Cooperative Marine Turtle Tagging Program CMTTP at the Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research ACCSTR, University of Florida, Gainesville.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Wetland and Aquatic Research Center worked alongside the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to amalgamate over three decades of relocation trawling records. It is USACE's mission to provide safe, reliable, efficient, and environmentally sustainable waterborne transportation systems (channels, harbors, and waterways) for movement of commerce, national security needs, and recreation. Coastal waterways and harbors are often maintained by using hopper dredging to remove sediment from the channels. USACE also provides coastal storm resiliency through efforts including nourishing beaches. A portion of those beaches are nourished using sand acquired from borrow sites under BOEM's jurisdiction. Since the 1980's, relocation trawling has been used as a minimization measure to reduce the likelihood of lethal take of sea turtles from hopper dredging. Protected Species Observers (PSOs) onboard both hopper dredges and relocation trawlers monitor and handle the capture of protected species, including sea turtles and fish, under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The protected species captured during relocation trawling efforts include Kemp's ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys kempii), loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta), green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas), leatherback sea turtles (Dermochelys coriacea), hawksbill sea turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata), Atlantic sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrinchus), Gulf sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrinchus desotoi), shortnose sturgeon (Acipenser brevirostrum), and smalltooth sawfish (Pristis pectinata). These species are identified in the data by their respective species initial abbreviations: lk, cc, cm, dc, ei, ao, aod, ab, and pp. These PSOs are approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and funded under USACE contracts for dredging or required for specific USACE permitted dredging projects. PSO reports are then required to be submitted to USACE to document details about the trawling and captures. USGS oversaw the digitization of available paper PSO reports and incorporated them with other available digital records provided by USACE. The thirty years of records covering multiple Divisions within USACE resulted in missing records that were thankfully provided by PSO companies including Coastwise Consulting, Inc. and East Coast Observers, Inc. The Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research at the University of Florida hosts the sea turtle tagging database and also provided records of USACE projects completed by PSO companies including Coastwise Consulting, East Coast Observers, and Research, Environmental, and Management Support (REMSA). This multi-year effort required an extensive data carpentry effort by the USGS that standardized and homogenized data contents, amended human error during the data digitization process, and bound many individual datasets together into a single, organized dataset. These data will be used by agencies to make policy decisions based on an evaluation of the relocation trawling efforts. Other stakeholders and researchers will also have access to these data when asking future research questions and generating queries.

This data contains one comma-delimited file with data collected from dive-logging satellite tags placed on loggerhead sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico. Specifically, the file contains the turtle's platform transmitter terminal (PTT; satellite tag) number, the date and time (in UTC) of the dive data collected, the behavioral mode of the turtle on that date, and the dive data values. These values are identified by the column "bin_type_num" which includes the type of bin and what level, as well as "value", which includes either the number or percent of dives.

Following an explosion at the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20, 2010, MC252 an estimated 3.19 million barrels of oil leaked into the Northern Gulf of Mexico over 87 days. The endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii [Lk]) has a long established record of using the area near the well as primary foraging grounds. Resulting short- and long-term negative impacts of the oil spill on sea turtles could induce changes in the health and fitness of the Lk population. MC252 oil is known to have entered the foraging areas. Consequently, stable carbon and nitrogen isotope signatures from MC252 oil should be reflected in the food web and in the tissues of organisms such as sea turtles. We measured carbon and nitrogen isosope ratios of satellite-tagged turtles to 1) assess changes in foraging strategies of nesting Lk sampled in 2010 (the year of the spill) and two subsequent post-spill years; and 2) estimate the proportion of females that were within the area affected by the oil spill, the latter via discriminant analysis. Scute samples were collected using a biopsy punch from turtles nesting at a long-term study site on the Lower Texas Coast (Padre Island National Seashore) and on the Upper Texas Coast (Galveston Island to Surfside Beach). Turtles included in this study were sampled only once. δ13C values in samples obtained from turtles nesting in 2011 and 2012 were significantly depleted (F3,96=4.76, p=0.004 ) compared to 2010 samples. In contrast, there were no significant differences in δ15N among years. The depleted carbon values correlate with the depleted carbon values of MC252 oil. The distinctive isotope values of the satellite tagged females provided data with which to identify turtles that were inside the oiled area