Okinawa Turtle Archive: An archive project documenting sea turtle identification and behavior through drone footage

From the drone footage, we extracted still images of clearly visible carapace patterns and performed visual individual identification. For each identified individual, we recorded scientific name, identification traits, and sex. By October 2025, we had identified 202 individual sea turtles, confirming that the data can be structured as biological occurrence records with precise temporal and spatial information.

These findings demonstrate that drone-based observation is a viable method for collecting quantitative data on sea turtles at sea. We propose to disseminate this methodology and establish a collaborative network to enable similar surveys in other regions and seasons.