Rare sea reptile makes impressive 7,000-mile journey from tropics to northern seas and back

A mama turtle has impressed researchers after making a rare 7,000-mile journey in seven months, swimming from the warm waters of Panama to the North Atlantic before returning to Florida.

Riptide, a female leatherback turtle from the Caribbean, was tagged and released off the coast of Panama on May 22. 

Since then, Sea Turtle Conservancy, an organization based in Gainesville, Florida, has been tracking the turtle's long and impressive journey. 

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Riptide reached Turks and Caicos on July 11, and nearly saw the coast of Nova Scotia on Sept. 14.

She then moved south and was spotted near Fire Island, New York, on Nov. 23 before making her way south, hitting 7,000 miles by Jan. 11.

David Godfrey, the executive director of the Sea Turtle Conservancy, told Fox News Digital that Riptide is one of the first turtles his organization has seen take such a trip.

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"Riptide is one of the first turtles we have tracked from Panama that went all the way to the North Atlantic and then back down to the coast of Florida in a bit over seven months," said Godfrey.

"Her 7,000-mile migration is not the longest we have seen, but it is definitely up there for less than a year."

Riptide is currently swimming in the waters outside of Jacksonville, and Godfrey predicts that she'll move down to Panama, where she hatched and nested 93 fertile eggs last year. 

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"It would be unusual for her to nest two years in a row," Godfrey observed. "More likely, she will continue to migrate around looking for food until she returns to the Caribbean in 2027."

He added, "Turtles do their own thing, and it will be fun to watch and see if she surprises us back in Panama this summer."

Officials aren't sure how old the long-distance swimmer is, but Godfrey said she's at least 15 years old - and "could be quite a bit older than that."

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Sea Turtle Conservancy (STC), the oldest sea turtle research and conservation group in the world, carries out efforts across Central America, the Caribbean and the Sunshine State.

Godfrey added that leatherbacks have almost no predators once they're fully grown, except for large sharks - but their greatest threat is human activity. 

"Unfortunately, we humans are their greatest threat, usually from inadvertently impacting them through commercial fishing activities, boat strikes and disturbance of their habitat," he said.

"There is also a significant amount of poaching of eggs and even some adult turtles when they come back to the nesting beach, which are the kinds of things STC works very hard to curtail."