The giant leatherback turtle which has been tracked since it was put back into the sea in Co Kerry last year is believed to be alive and well, according to those following its movements.
Tens of thousands, many of them children, have logged on to an internet site mapping the turtle's journey from Dingle to north Africa.
However, they have been disappointed by fewer signals from the turtle, which had a special tracking device fitted in Dingle.
In March, an alert was posted warning that the satellite tag was malfunctioning and the trail was lost for a time.
Since getting caught up in lobster pots off Dingle in August, the 400kg leatherback turtle was released and has pursued a course south past Madeira and the Canary Islands, past Mauritania and on to Senegal in January where she swam in waters registering 24C. (It was 9C in Dingle at the time.)
She has dived to depths of 500m. At one point she doubled back off the north coast of Spain, probably in pursuit of jellyfish.
This is the second fright the turtle has given her followers on the internet site www.turtle.ie
Last November, after passing the Canary Islands and hitting bad weather, there was no link from her for three weeks.
According to the website, new signals were transmitted to the satellite two weeks ago suggesting she was no longer hugging the coast of Africa, but was off the Cape Verde Islands and was heading north.
Dingle marine biologist Kevin Flannery, who was involved in the rescue of the turtle and the fitting of the tracking tag, said it was likely salt was corroding the metal device.
He said there was a chance the turtle would head back towards Irish waters. She was unlikely to nest now as she was thousands of kilometres from the main nesting beaches of either west Africa or the Caribbean.
He has appealed to fishermen this summer to be on the alert for leatherbacks, and to contact Mara Beo (known as Dingle Oceanworld) or the website if they come across turtles caught up in their fishing nets.
Mr Flannery said the whole point of the Irish Sea Leatherback Turtle Project, as it is known, is "to solve the mystery" of the leatherbacks' journeys and to help arrest their decline.
The leatherbacks are the largest of all turtles. Severely threatened by marine pollution and by having their eggs robbed, they are thought to number just 26,000.
Although recorded as far north as Iceland and as far south as French Guyana, their journeys are little understood. They appear in Irish waters from late summer up to early autumn.
The project, which is the first tracking of a leatherback in the north Atlantic, is being sponsored by the EU and is being run between the University of Wales, Swansea, University College Cork and Mara Beo in Dingle.