When the signal from a huge sea turtle that was being tracked by satellite disappeared, researchers thought its transmitter had fallen off. In fact the turtle had found its way onto the menu at a Mexican village barbecue. Scientists are now hoping to retrieve the $2500 transmitter the animal carried. The San Diego-based conservation group Wildcoast had tracked the movement of the 110-kilograms East Pacific green turtle since December 2000. It swam from its nesting site in southern Mexico to feeding grounds in Baja California, a 1500-kilometre peninsula on Mexico’s Pacific coast. But signals from the turtle’s transmitter stopped in March. In mid-July, Wildcoast biologist Wallace Nichols quizzed poachers at his research site in Magdalena Bay, a coastal lagoon in southern Baja. They told him the 50-year-old turtle had been scoffed at a village barbecue. “They said it was a big party – about 100 people took part,” says Nichols. “It’s kind of a drag to track a turtle for months and find out someone ate it.” Thousands of schoolchildren had been following the turtle’s journey on the internet. Mexico’s coastal waters are home to five species of sea turtles, all of which are protected under Mexican law. However, enforcement is minimal and the green turtle is prized for its meat. Recent studies at the Autonomous University of Baja California Sur in La Paz, Mexico, suggested that people in Baja California Sur eat around 30,000 green turtles each year. Nichols thinks about 25 of the 300 turtles he has tracked in the past eight years shared the same fate. He hopes to retrieve the turtle’s transmitter on a future trip. Someone may have taken the transmitter as a souvenir, but if they take it outside, Wildcoast might pick up the signal and locate it.