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Tracking Sherman The Nova Scotia Leatherback Turtle Working Group made world history on September 3, 1999 on the waters off Neil’s Harbour, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia when the tagging team of fishermen Bert and Blair Fricker and biologist Mike James successfully satellite tagged a male leatherback at sea. The tagging team was both the first to satellite tag a leatherback turtle at sea and the first to ever satellite tag a male leatherback turtle. Although many scientists have successfully satellite tagged female turtles as they nest on beaches in South and Central America, no one had been able to master the tricky task of tagging a turtle at sea. Because the only time leatherbacks return to land after they hatch is to nest, scientists had never been able to satellite tag a male leatherback. So "Sherman," who |
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was named for retired Acadia University biology professor Dr. Sherman Bleakney, the
first scientist to document the
presence of leatherbacks in the North Atlantic, gave scientists
important information about the half of the leatherback population they
knew little about. In the first few weeks after he was tagged, Sherman spent most of his time feeding on jellyfish and basking at the water's surface. |
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He swam from the Continental Shelf off Neil’s Harbour to
Placentia Bay, Newfoundland where he stayed for several days. After his visit to Newfoundland, Sherman began to quickly
head south. Sherman’s satellite pack lasted 53 days before its batteries ran out and it stopped transmitting.
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