BBC News, 5th January 2011

Scientists have for the first time tracked leatherback turtles from the world's largest nesting site, in Gabon, as they traverse the South Atlantic.

Data from tags on their backs show they swim thousands of kilometres each year.

These journeys take them through areas where they are at high risk of being caught accidentally by fishing boats.

The leatherback is the world's biggest turtle and listed as Critically Endangered, largely because of poaching for eggs and snaring in fishing gear.

Typically between one and two metres long, the animals weigh up to three-quarters of a tonne and can swim across entire oceans, returning to their ancestral nesting sites to breed every few years.