Social media mining and photo-identification detects the shift of long-term seasonal foraging habitat for a juvenile loggerhead sea turtle

Animal imagery uploaded on social media has been identified as an important tool in wildlife research and conservation and has been used in a variety of recent studies. Here a case study is presented, where a detailed analysis of social media content revealed a shift of a long-term foraging habitat for a juvenile loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) in Greece. In particular, this individual was a long term resident of Zakynthos island, Greece, from 2016 until 2020 (5 consecutive summer seasons), regularly foraging on a nearshore reef, with no observations of it being made during the 2021 season. However regular social media image mining combined with photo-identification, detected this individual foraging in the Gulf of Corinth in August 2021, more that 200km away from his previous foraging habitat. This case study (i) shows the possibility for juvenile loggerheads to shift their foraging site even after long term use, with implications in capture-mark-recapture studies and (ii) once more highlights the usefulness of social media mining and citizen science in diverse aspects of sea turtle studies.