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UPDATE 14.03.07: Up until her last transmission (03.10.06), Devi's locations suggest that she remained at Habaraduwa, about 70km to the west of Rekawa, for at least a month after nesting. This suggests that Habaraduwa is the site of her resident foraging ground.
of Seaturtle.org
Vihari Mahadevi (Devi) was the third turtle to be satellite tagged in Sri Lanka and was tagged after her 5th nest on Rekawa beach during the 2006 season. Her name is that of a queen from Sri Lanka's ancient history, who, according to legend, stopped a tsunami. She was tagged by officers of the Turtle Conservation Project (TCP) and the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) under supervision of Peter Richardson from the Marine Conservation Society (MCS). Devi's tag was supported by The Deep Aquarium in Hull, who ran a naming competition with their visitors that resulted in Devi having an alternative name of Conchita!
After she was tagged on the 03.08.06, Devi internested off Rekawa beach until she nested again on the 17.08.06. She then travelled to Habaraduwa just over 70km west along the southern coast of Sri Lanka, where she spent her inter-nesting period of about 2 weeks before swimming back to Rekawa to nest there again on the 02.09.06. After her last nest she swam back to Habaraduwa where she stayed for a month before her last transmission on the 03.10.06. Is Habaraduwa Devi's home? If so, this would be quite unusual for adult female green turtles. Like the other turtles in this study, adult female green turtles usually spend most of their time at foraging grounds hundreds of kilometres away from the nesting beach.
TCP treasurer MM Saman (on the left) says goodbye to Devi with the rest of the TCP, DWC and MCS team that helped attach her tag.
