Survivorship of adult female loggerhead sea turtles, Caretta caretta, nesting on Little Cumberland Island, Georgia USA

Abstract

This paper represents a survivorship curve for adult female loggerhead sea turtles, Caretta caretta, nesting on Little Cumberland Island, Georgia, USA, from 1964-1981. A method is described by which information on interseasonal nesting cycles may be used to adjust survivorship calculations for the high incidence of tag loss common to all marine turtle studies. Estimated annual survivorship is significantly higher after adjustment for tag loss. Adjusted data reveal that annual survivorship of adult females in the wild is apparently constant at 0.81, indicating a calculated maximum reproductive life span of 32 yr.