Loggerhead sea turtle released to wild: Traveled 2,000 miles from Colombia,A juvenile endangered loggerhead sea turtle treated at The Turtle Hospital in Marathon, Florida, has been released to the wild, reported the Miami Herald on May 24.
Charley, as the turtle was named, was placed among seaweed 25 miles off Marathon on Friday. The sea turtle had been rescued seventeen days earlier by a fisherman who saw it floating about twenty miles off the Middle Keys.
Charley was nurtured from a hatchling as part of a sea turtle conservation cooperative program between Jorge Tadeo Lozano University and Mundo Marino Aquarium in Santa Marta, Colombia, and was released off Colombia June 9, 2012. Researchers believe the turtle traveled some 2,000 miles from there to reach waters off the Keys.
Staff at the Turtle Hospital said the sea turtle had ingested plastic, which caused its digestive system to become impacted.
All seven species of sea turtles are either threatened or endangered. Destruction of their reef habitats, development, poaching of their eggs, and temperature change continue to cause accelerated decline of sea turtle populations worldwide. At sea, turtles risk being caught in the nets of commercial fishing boats and increased incidence of diseases in the wild.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Loggerhead sea turtle released to wild: Traveled 2,000 miles from Colombia
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment