Turkey's 'Selebrity' Turtle 'Tuba' Exists In Italy's Lecce, A Digital Map Of Travel Seen More Than 7 Million Rivers

Tuba turtles. (Source DEKAMER vial Daily Sabah)

JAKARTA - Tuba, a logger turtle continued its journey in the Mediterranean Sea three years after Turkish volunteers installed a tracking device on him.

Departing from a rehabilitation center in Muğla Province, southwest Turkey, for an endangered turtle like himself, Tuba is currently off the coast of Lecce in southern Italy.

While he is not the only tortoise of its kind tracked by Turkish activists, he appears to be the most famous for the maps showing his movement has been viewed more than 7 million times on websites run by activists.

In three years, Tuba has covered a distance of 17,500 kilometers (10,873 miles) and is the only turtle whose entire route is tracked by such a long route, from Turkey to the Adriatic Sea, reports Daily Sabah August 29,

The Turtle Research and Rescue Rehabilitation Center (DEKAMER), with the support of the Peduli TUI Foundation, has monitored every turtle movement, believed to be between the ages of 25 and 30, since August 28, 2019.

The team not only monitored turtles, their research was part of a study to learn more about the loggerhead turtle migration route, where they spent the winter and how they were looking for food.

Tracking also provides insight into circumstances that encourage turtles closer to the beach or elsewhere, as well as how the flow and magnetic fields affect their roads.

Tuba left Iztuzu, a beach in Muğla famous for, and spent about two months off the coast of the nearby city of Marmaris. He then went to Greece and for three years, visited Malta, Italy, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro and Croatia.

It is known, there are seven species of turtles known in the world, and Turkey is home to loggerhead turtles and green turtles, which choose the country's Mediterranean coast to nest.

Their habitat stretches from the southwestern tip of the Mediterranean coast in Iztuzu in Muğla to Samandağı further east on Hatay.

Governments and animal protection groups work to protect turtles, which remain under the scrutiny of volunteers.

In the last two years, 231 dead turtles have been stranded on the Turkish coast, according to volunteer data. The autopsy of 87 turtles in Turkey last year found that 20 percent of them suffered from problems stemming from plastic consumption. In 2020, 32 turtles were found dead on different dates after eating plastic.