Seasonal movements of immature Kemp’s ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys kempii) in the northern gulf of Mexico ANDREW T. COLEMAN a,†,* , JONATHAN L. PITCHFORD a , HELEN BAILEY b and MOBY SOLANGI a a Institute for Marine Mammal Studies, Gulfport, Mississippi, USA b Chesapeake Biological Laborartory, UMCES, Solomons, Maryland, USA ABSTRACT 1. Seasonal movements and core habitat areas of immature Kemp’s ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys kempii) in the northern Gulf of Mexico were tracked via satellite telemetry. Tagged turtles were incidentally captured by recreational fishermen and rehabilitated at the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport, Mississippi. 2. The average size of the core habitat areas (50% KDE (kernel density estimation)) was 1660.2 km 2 ± 3438.2 SD. Turtles displayed strong intra- and inter-annual site fidelity to the Mississippi Sound during the spring, summer, and autumn months. During the winter months, most turtles, probably influenced by water temperatures, migrated to nearshore waters of Louisiana on either side of the Mississippi River Delta. However, other migration strategies were also observed. 3. Overall, these data indicate that the Mississippi Sound is an important developmental habitat for this critically endangered species. In addition, their wintering grounds in Louisiana are utilized by adult Kemp’s ridleys and other sea turtle species as foraging grounds and migratory corridors. The high use of these areas by sea turtle populations increases the potential for negative impacts from anthropogenic disturbances (e.g. shrimp trawling, oil production, hypoxia) that occur there. Copyright # 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Received 31 August 2015; Revised 18 February 2016; Accepted 13 March 2016 KEY WORDS: coastal; ocean; migration; endangered species; remote sensing; reptiles INTRODUCTION Although several marine turtle populations have displayed population growth from depleted numbers (Balazs and Chaloupka, 2004; Dutton et al., 2005; Ehrhart et al., 2014; Weber et al., 2014; Hamilton et al., 2015), understanding the ecology of such highly migratory marine species for the development of conservation plans has inherent complexities (Block et al., 2011; Campagna et al., 2011; Fossette et al., 2014). The critically endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii) (Marine Turtle Specialist Group, 1996) had been exhibiting an impressive *Correspondence to: Andrew T. Coleman, Institute for Marine Mammal Studies, Gulfport, Mississippi 39503, USA. Email: andycoleman@ birminghamaudubon.org † Present address: Birmingham Audubon Society, 3720 4 th Ave S., Birmingham, Alabama 35222, USA Copyright # 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. AQUATIC CONSERVATION: MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS Aquatic Conserv: Mar. Freshw. Ecosyst. (2016) Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/aqc.2656