The Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network (STSSN) was formally established in 1980 to collect information on and document strandings of marine turtles along the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts. The network encompasses the coastal areas of the eighteen state region from Maine through Texas, and includes portions of the U.S. Caribbean. Data are compiled through the efforts of network participants who document marine turtle strandings in their respective areas and contribute those data to the centralized STSSN data base.
These reports summarize marine turtle strandings documented through the efforts of the Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network (STSSN). These numbers are considered minimum stranding figures, as they are reported strandings only, not all stranding events. Effort expended in the collection of stranding data varied both geographically and temporally. Coverage ranges from systematic weekly (or more frequent) sampling to no sampling at all in some areas. All six species known to inhabit the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Atlantic are included, these include: loggerheads (Caretta caretta), greens (Chelonia mydas), Kemp’s ridleys (Lepidochelys kempi), hawksbills (Eretmochelys imbricata), leatherbacks (Dermochelys coriacea) and olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea).
True strandings are defined as turtles which wash ashore dead or alive, or are found floating dead or alive (generally in a weakened condition). Other reports received are not included in these reports. Headstarted turtles are hatched and raised in captivity for approximately one year before being tagged and released. Strandings of headstarted turtles are excluded because they may represent a bias if their stranding was an artifact of captive rearing and release. Reports of incidentally captured turtles, posthatchlings and live sighting reports received through the network were archived, but are not included in this report as these records are not considered to be true strandings.
Using the online reports, one can obtain basic summarized stranding information for the years 1986 through 2007, additional years will be added once available. The data used to generate the reports have been verified from 1998- 2005, however they are subject to change as additional data are received. The data from 1986-1997, 2006 and 2007 are preliminary and are in the process of being verified, beginning with the most current years. Queries may include Year, Month, Region, Zone, State, County, and species.
Please review the Data Access Policy prior to use. Any additional information needs to be requested from the STSSN National Coordinator. Requests should be very specific.
| Annual Stranding Reports | Sample | Monthly Stranding Reports | Sample |
|---|---|---|---|
| By Year, State, Species | By Year, Region, Zone | ||
| By Year, Zone, Species | By Year, Species | ||
| By Year, Species, State | |||
| By Year, Species, State, County | |||
| By Year, State | |||
| By Year, State, County |
The online reports summarize turtle strandings according to your selection criteria.
For example, for the States criteria:
For all states, click ALL if it is not already selected.
For one individual state, click on that state
To select a range of states without any gaps, click on the first state desired then hold the shift key when clicking the last state you desire.
To select multiple states with gaps, click on the first state desired and then hold the control (Ctrl) key while clicking other states.
To remove a state already your list, click on that state again.
You repeat the same process with another criteria, for example years.
Your final report will reflect only those states you specy AND the years you specify.
Note:These reports were developed for and tested in Internet Explorer 6.0. If the data and column headings don't perfectly align, resize the browser window so that the top fixed heading lines up with the data. Also, if using another browser, upgrade to the latest version of that browser if there are problems with overlapping text. The later browsers understand more of the formatting commands needed to provide well formatted output.
Your browser can save the web report as an HTML file.
Usually the menu command would be:
File
Save as
Then you select a directory to place it in and give it a name and add the .htm or .html file extension.
Later versions of Microsoft Excel allow you to read an html page as a spreadsheet.
The Excel commands would be:
File
Open
Go back to the directory where you saved the file.
Select Files of Type: Web Pages and Web Archives (*.htm; *.html; . . . )
Then find your file.
Open
This brings the file into Excel. If you click in either the head or the body of the report, Excel recognizes the data as a table.
You can sort it in any order you please, re-arrange columns, and even chart it.