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. 2024 Jul 17;14(1):16519.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-67501-z.

The response of sea turtles to vocalizations opens new perspectives to reduce their bycatch

Damien Chevallier  1 , Léo Maucourt  2   3   4 , Isabelle Charrier  4 , Pierre Lelong  2   3 , Yves Le Gall  5 , Eric Menut  5 , Bryan Wallace  6   7 , Cyrielle Delvenne  2 , Orsolya Vincze  8 , Lorène Jeantet  9   10 , Marc Girondot  11 , Jordan Martin  2 , Ouvéa Bourgeois  2 , Muriel Lepori  2 , Pascal Fournier  12 , Christine Fournier-Chambrillon  12 , Sidney Régis  2 , Nicolas Lecerf  2 , Fabien Lefebvre  13 , Nathalie Aubert  13 , Mosiah Arthus  14 , Matthieu Pujol  2 , Michel Anthony Nalovic  15 , Moulanier Nicolas  2 , Marie-Clémence Burg  2 , Pascale Chevallier  16 , Tao Chevallier  16 , Antony Landreau  16 , Stéphane Meslier  16 , Eugène Larcher  17 , Yvon Le Maho  18
Affiliations

The response of sea turtles to vocalizations opens new perspectives to reduce their bycatch

Damien Chevallier et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Incidental capture of non-target species poses a pervasive threat to many marine species, with sometimes devastating consequences for both fisheries and conservation efforts. Because of the well-known importance of vocalizations in cetaceans, acoustic deterrents have been extensively used for these species. In contrast, acoustic communication for sea turtles has been considered negligible, and this question has been largely unexplored. Addressing this challenge therefore requires a comprehensive understanding of sea turtles' responses to sensory signals. In this study, we scrutinized the avenue of auditory cues, specifically the natural sounds produced by green turtles (Chelonia mydas) in Martinique, as a potential tool to reduce bycatch. We recorded 10 sounds produced by green turtles and identified those that appear to correspond to alerts, flight or social contact between individuals. Subsequently, these turtle sounds-as well synthetic and natural (earthquake) sounds-were presented to turtles in known foraging areas to assess the behavioral response of green turtles to these sounds. Our data highlighted that the playback of sounds produced by sea turtles was associated with alert or increased the vigilance of individuals. This therefore suggests novel opportunities for using sea turtle sounds to deter them from fishing gear or other potentially harmful areas, and highlights the potential of our research to improve sea turtles populations' conservation.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic illustration of playback tests (POBS: observation platform; PACO: acoustic platform) and illustration of immediate response types (0 = no reaction; 1 = significant reaction).
Figure 2
Figure 2
(a) Frequency (Hz) and sound level (mean dB µPa @1 m rms) of the presented signals tested during the study (Synthetic sounds are represented by pink rectangles), (b) Spectrograms of Squeak (top) and Rumble (bottom) recorded from wild green turtles and (c) percent of turtles for each type of reaction to these two signals (respectively: Squeak in blue shades and Rumble in orange shades).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Probability of response to Rumbles with 95% credible interval obtained from Bayesian generalized linear mixed model according to distance (m) (a) and shot number (b).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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