Abstract Sea turtle stranding events provide an opportunity to study drivers of mortality, but causes of strandings are poorly understood. A general sea turtle carcass oceanographic drift model was developed to estimate likely mortality locations from coastal sea turtle stranding records. Key model advancements include realistic direct wind forcing on carcasses, temperature driven carcass decomposition and the development of mortality location predictions for individual strandings. We applied this model to 2009–2014 stranding events within the Chesapeake Bay, Virginia. Predicted origin of vessel strike strandings were compared to commercial vessel data, and potential hazardous turtle-vessel interactions were identified in the southeastern Bay and James River. Commercial fishing activity of gear types with known sea turtle interactions were compared to predicted mortality locations for stranded turtles with suggested fisheries-induced mortality. Probable mortality locations for these strandings varied seasonally, with two distinct areas in the southwest and southeast portions of the lower Bay. Spatial overlap was noted between potential mortality locations and gillnet, seine, pot, and pound net fisheries, providing important information for focusing future research on mitigating conflict between sea turtles and human activities. Our ability to quantitatively assess spatial and temporal overlap between sea turtle mortality and human uses of the habitat were hindered by the low resolution of human use datasets, especially those for recreational vessel and commercial fishing gear distributions. This study highlights the importance of addressing these data gaps and provides a meaningful conservation tool that can be applied to stranding data of sea turtles and other marine megafauna worldwide.

中文翻译：

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使用实验校准的时间和空间特定漂移模型的海龟搁浅死亡率的可能位置

摘要 海龟搁浅事件为研究死亡率驱动因素提供了机会，但对搁浅的原因知之甚少。开发了一个通用的海龟尸体海洋学漂移模型，以根据沿海海龟搁浅记录估计可能的死亡地点。主要模型改进包括对胴体的真实直接风力强迫、温度驱动的胴体分解以及对单个搁浅的死亡位置预测的开发。我们将此模型应用于 2009-2014 年弗吉尼亚州切萨皮克湾内的搁浅事件。将船只搁浅的预测起源与商业船只数据进行了比较，并在海湾东南部和詹姆斯河确定了潜在的危险海龟-船只相互作用。将具有已知海龟相互作用的渔具类型的商业捕鱼活动与具有建议的渔业诱发死亡率的搁浅海龟的预测死亡地点进行比较。这些搁浅的可能死亡地点随季节变化，在下湾的西南和东南部有两个不同的区域。注意到潜在死亡地点与刺网、围网、盆栽和磅网渔业之间的空间重叠，为未来研究重点减轻海龟与人类活动之间的冲突提供了重要信息。我们定量评估海龟死亡率与人类使用栖息地之间的空间和时间重叠的能力受到人类使用数据集分辨率低的阻碍，尤其是那些用于休闲船只和商业渔具分布的数据集。