UNCW researcher studies Kemp’s ridley sea turtle bones to better estimate age

SURF CITY, NC (WWAY) — A local researcher is working to unlock the secrets of one of the world’s smallest and most endangered sea turtles.

Jamie Clark, a third-year Ph.D. student at UNCW, is working with NOAA researchers to develop new tools to estimate the age of living Kemp’s ridley sea turtles.

“It takes a long time to estimate those ages of deceased turtles, and so we want to estimate the age of living turtles with more real-time assessment,” Clark said.

Clark’s research focuses on two tools that use near-infrared light and genetics to estimate the age of living sea turtles, including turtles like Lena, who lives at the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center in Surf City.

While most Kemp’s ridley nesting occurs along the Gulf Coast, younger turtles are commonly found in Atlantic waters, including off the coast of North Carolina.

Before the new technology can be used in the field, researchers must calibrate it against something scientists already trust: turtle bones.

“They collect the front flippers for us and send them to us and we excise the humerus bone and we histologically process the humerus bone for age,” Clark said.

Turtle bones from stranded sea turtles are collected by NOAA partners and members of the National Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network across the country.

Researchers remove the humerus bone from the front flipper, which is similar to the upper arm bone in humans. Thin sections of the bone are then examined under a microscope to help determine how old the turtle was when it died.

“We count growth rings just like counting tree rings,” Clark said. So, we can section the bone and there’s a lot of histology processes that get the bone to that point and we get an age estimate by analyzing those growth rings.”

Clark said knowing a turtle’s age can help researchers better understand the species and support conservation efforts.

With approval from UNCW’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center, Clark said she is eager to continue the research and help scientists better understand one of the world’s most endangered sea turtle species.