Using community-sourced underwater photography and image recognition software to study green sea turtle distribution and ecology in southern California

The goal of this project is to study green turtles in and around La Jolla Cove in the San Diego Region-a highly populated site with ecotourism-by engaging with local photographers to collect green turtle underwater images. The project uses publicly available facial recognition software (HotSpotter) to identify individual turtles, from which we determine population size, residency patterns, and foraging ecology