Tracking our turtles: Bokkie the amputee green turtle making waves

Many of our turtle community will be familiar with the story of Bokkie, the amputee green turtle who spent about a year undergoing rehabilitation at our Turtle Conservation Centre. Not only is Bokkie missing her front left flipper, but she also excreted over 48 pieces of plastic. Despite these challenges, Bokkie healed and grew strong under the care of our turtle team until she was declared ready for release!

Just 50 days ago, Bokkie was released into the iSimangaliso Wetland Park alongside fellow rehabilitation patient, Luna. Her amputated flipper was the least of her worries as she surged into the warm waters of this beautiful Marine Protected Area.

Most recently, Bokkie crossed the border from Kosi Bay into Mozambique! To gain some perspective on where Bokkie is now exploring, we reached out to a fellow turtle scientist who is doing some awesome work in that area.

Let's hear more from Dr Jess Williams, a Mozambican turtle specialist...

Since crossing the border into Mozambique, Bokkie’s slowly been exploring the nearshore reef system of Maputo National Park! This habitat is quite similar to that of Kosi Bay – picture steep, lushly vegetated dunes along the coast with a rocky barrier reef system in the coastal environment. It’s quite a high-energy system, meaning that there is significant wave energy in the reef. Maputo National Park stretches along 90km of coastline between the border and Inhaca Island. While Bokkie stays within the offshore, open ocean side of this protected area, she will remain quite safe within these waters. It’s one of the most secure systems in Mozambican waters for Bokkie: Poaching is largely eradicated and neither artisanal nor commercial fishing occurs within the park.

Given that Bokkie is a sub-adult turtle, she is likely to be on the lookout for a secure patch of resident reef. During these sub-adult years, turtles often exhibit high site fidelity (basically, they’re loyal to a particular coastal area) and very small home ranges. From Bokkie’s tracks, it looks like she is indeed exploring a suitable patch of reef to call home.

What makes a suitable home for Bokkie? This is likely to be a reef system that provides ample food, with a depth of between 10 – 40m, and a secure resting spot under a ledge or in a rocky cave. Given that green turtles love their veggies, Bokkie will be searching for a spot with a mix of seagrass beds and macroalgae patches. If she secures a new spot with high-quality foraging grounds, we could expect to see her movement reducing (abundant food sources often mean smaller home ranges).

However, Bokkie could also continue to explore further up the coast into Maputo Bay, where the fishing pressure and habitat types will change considerably. It will be very interesting to see where Bokkie chooses to settle!

The Turtle Conservation Centre is very grateful to the Sustainable Trendsetters Movement for adopting Bokkie and helping us to keep our turtle community in the loop with her movements.