Tuba, a Caretta caretta or loggerhead turtle, continues her travels in the Mediterranean Sea three years after Turkish volunteers attached a tracking device to her. Setting out from a rehab center in the southwestern Turkish province of Muğla for endangered turtles like herself, Tuba is currently off the coast of Lecce in southern Italy.

Though she is not the only turtle of her kind to be tracked by Turkish activists, she appears to be the most famous as a map showing her movements has been viewed more than 7 million times on a website run by activists.

In three years, Tuba covered a distance of 17,500 kilometers (10,873 miles) and was the only turtle whose entire route was tracked over such a long course, from Türkiye to the Adriatic Sea. The Sea Turtle Research and Rescue Rehabilitation Center (DEKAMER), with the support of TUI Care Foundation, has been watching every move the turtle, believed to be between the ages of 25 and 30, has made since Aug. 28, 2019. The team is not simply monitoring the turtle, their research is part of a study to learn more about the migration route of loggerhead turtles, where they spend the winter and how they search for food. The tracking also gives insight into the circumstances that push the turtle closer to beaches or elsewhere and how currents and magnetic fields affect her course.

Tuba departed Iztuzu, a beach in Muğla famed for Caretta carettas, and spent some two months off the coast of the nearby town of Marmaris. She then left for Greece and over the course of three years, visited Malta, Italy, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro and Croatia.

There are seven known sea turtle species in the world, and Türkiye is home to loggerhead sea turtles and green turtles, who choose the country’s Mediterranean beaches for nesting. Their habitats stretch from the southwestern tip of the Mediterranean coast in Iztuzu in Muğla to Samandağı further east in Hatay.

The government and animal protection groups work to protect the turtles, which remain under the constant watch of volunteers. In the past two years, 231 dead turtles washed ashore across Turkish coasts, according to data from volunteers. The autopsies of 87 turtles in Türkiye last year found that 20% of them suffered from problems that stemmed from the consumption of plastic materials. In 2020, 32 turtles were found dead on different dates after consuming plastic.