Geese need to hug the land to fly high: Animal migrations provide numerous examples of astonishing feats. Impressive even among these is the migration of bar-headed geese across the Himalayan Mountains, which reach heights of thousands of meters. Bishop et al. remotely monitored birds' heart rates, movement, and body temperature during migration. The geese “hug” the landforms, taking advantage of drafting and wind patterns. This unexpected strategy conserves energy, even though it means the geese repeatedly lose, and must then regain, altitude. Science , this issue p. 250

Aim  Although satellite tracking has yielded much information regarding the migrations and habitat use of threatened marine species, relatively little has been published about the environmental niche for loggerhead sea turtles Caretta caretta in north‐west Atlantic waters.Location  North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, USA.Methods  We tracked 68 adult female turtles between 1998 and 2008, one of the largest sample sizes to date, for 372.2 ± 210.4 days (mean ± SD).Results  We identified two strategies: (1) ‘seasonal’ migrations between summer and winter coastal areas (n = 47), although some turtles made oceanic excursions (n = 4) and (2) occupation of more southerly ‘year‐round’ ranges (n = 18). Seasonal turtles occupied summer home ranges of 645.1 km² (median, n = 42; using α‐hulls) predominantly north of 35 ° latitude and winter home ranges of 339.0 km² (n = 24) in a relatively small area on the narrow shelf off North Carolina. We tracked some of these turtles through successive summer (n = 8) and winter (n = 3) seasons, showing inter‐annual home range repeatability to within 14.5 km of summer areas and 10.3 km of winter areas. For year‐round turtles, home ranges were 1889.9 km². Turtles should be tracked for at least 80 days to reliably estimate the home range size in seasonal habitats. The equivalent minimum duration for ‘year‐round’ turtles is more complex to derive. We define an environmental envelope of the distribution of North American loggerhead turtles: warm waters (between 18.2 and 29.2 °C) on the coastal shelf (in depths of 3.0–89.0 m).Main conclusions  Our findings show that adult female loggerhead turtles show predictable, repeatable home range behaviour and do not generally leave waters of the USA, nor the continental shelf (< 200m depth). These data offer insights for future marine management, particularly if they were combined with those from the other management units in the USA.

We describe the real-time movements of the last of the marine mega-vertebrate taxa to be satellite tracked – the giant manta ray (or devil fish, Manta birostris), the world's largest ray at over 6 m disc width. Almost nothing is known about manta ray movements and their environmental preferences, making them one of the least understood of the marine mega-vertebrates. Red listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as ‘Vulnerable’ to extinction, manta rays are known to be subject to direct and incidental capture and some populations are declining. Satellite-tracked manta rays associated with seasonal upwelling events and thermal fronts off the Yucatan peninsula, Mexico, and made short-range shuttling movements, foraging along and between them. The majority of locations were received from waters shallower than 50 m deep, representing thermally dynamic and productive waters. Manta rays remained in the Mexican Exclusive Economic Zone for the duration of tracking but only 12% of tracking locations were received from within Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Our results on the spatio-temporal distribution of these enigmatic rays highlight opportunities and challenges to management efforts.

Although the Atlantic waters of North America support hundreds of thousands of loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta), remarkably little is known regarding their migratory ecology and habitat use. We integrate satellite tracking with remotely sensed oceanographic data to uncover two different migratory strategies used by loggerhead turtles at the northern part of their range. Most turtles travelled from the nesting beach to forage at higher latitudes in summer, before migrating south to wintering grounds in the autumn. Others moved south after nesting to forage for up to 514 days and did not make an autumn migration. Both groups utilized warm waters at the very edge of the Gulf Stream during winter: for southerly turtles obviating seasonal migration, and for northerly turtles minimizing the distance, time and energy required to reach northern areas for subsequent foraging seasons, avoiding lethally cold winter temperatures in inshore waters at the same latitude, and reducing energy costs that would be incurred within the fast‐flowing Gulf Stream. Females made long resting dives of up to 7 h 24 min, effectively hibernating during the colder months. Offshore federal waters of the USA constitute a more important habitat for both foraging and wintering turtles than previously appreciated. These areas are potential hotspots for interaction with fisheries and proposed US military training activities and should receive special monitoring efforts to fully assess the extent of overlap.