We were so happy to learn from X that the rescued sea turtle’s health improved, and he’s already been released back into the ocean. The girls reported this happy outcome to me, so I hightailed it over to X to get the dirt straight from the source.
Diagnosis: dehydration. The turtle was fed and hydrated orally. The barnacles were scraped from his body. X told me he was a loggerhead turtle, age eight.
“Will he get any bigger than that?” I asked.
“Of course,” he replied.
(As if I would know.)
Apparently this guy will grow into maturity of about four feet in diameter.
“Was he male or female?” I wondered.
X explained that that cannot be determined by a look-over. There’s an internal examination to determine gender, and the State didn’t do that. The turtle’s survival was paramount. Gender in this context, irrelevant.
I was just rooting around for anecdotal information to make this story more interesting.
I’d brought the sea turtle fact card X had given to the girls the other day. I’m sorry to realize how little I know about sea turtles given that I’ve been X’s neighbor and have loved this coastline for over eight years. He told me they made another rescue of a distressed turtle today.
He offered that the turtle who’d made the season’s first nest was a leatherback turtle, who weighs about one thousand pounds. Leatherbacks are rare, this far north up the Florida coast. The nest should hatch around the end of June.
I’ll be keeping an eye on it for y’all.
…just found your blog and loved the entry about the sea turtle! when we were in gulf shores, one came on shore to lay eggs, but so many people began to come around it that it went back into the ocean. hopefully she found a quieter spot! xo, mickey
So glad that the turtle got better and was able to return to the sea. Last week seems like months ago already!