Conclusion
Most of the tags recovered from C. mydas individuals in New Caledonia belonged to turtles known to nest in the sGBR of Australia. New migrations paths were uncovered for C. mydas in the Pacific region between the Chesterfield atolls (in New Caledonia) to Australia and Vanuatu to New Caledonia. This study reinforces that C. mydas travel long distances (>2000 km) between their feeding and nesting grounds in the Coral Sea. The low percentage of tag recoveries, however, needs to be better explained. Is this just due to a lack of tag returns or do the numbers of recaptures reflect the actual importance of migrations throughout the Coral Sea (i.e., with low tag recoveries explained by the lack of capacity at the regional scale)? Findings reported here demonstrate the need for a comprehensive tag recovery program in New Caledonia. Most of all, this study confirms that sea turtle conservation is not a localised management problem, but rather an international issue and management activities need to be devised and implemented at a larger scale: in this instance across the Coral Sea.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the Association for the Safeguard of the Nature of New Caledonia (ASNNC), the fisheries department of New Caledonia (SMMPM) and the Queensland Turtle Research program for allowing us to use their data that was collected during all these years and that we know required hard labor. Gerard Bourke kindly provided assistance with production of the maps. Colette Wabnizt also provided valuable feedback and comments. We would like to dedicate this paper to one of the authors, George Petro, who will not be able to see this paper published.