Morning census on Friday saw Richard Bull and Lisa Spencer battling against stormforce winds and crashing waves that threatened to throw whole trees onto the fearless pair. At mile 2 and 1/8th, Richard spotted an unusual black object being bashed against the sandbank with many logs.
On closer inspection, they discovered that the black object was in fact a yearling green turtle covered in a thick tar of oil. The poor creature was so blackened that it could no longer see, open its mouth, or manoeuvre itself in the water. Without immediate assistance, the poor little animal would surely die.
The team quickly informed base of the situation and recruited Diogo Verissimo and Wing Tsui to help with the cleanup operation. The turtle was brought back to base where Dio and Wing carefully cleaned the turtle with baby soap and vegetable oil. A makeshift water tank was created as a holding facility with teams collecting large jugs of seawater to fill it.
April Stevens, a PhD student working with our partner COTERC, hastily emailed some wildlife vets with experience in dealing with oil covered turtles. They replied, suggesting that the mouth could be cleaned with none other that mayonnaise! April headed up the mouth and eye cleaning and by the end of Friday, the turtle was looking a lot better. The turtle was in good shape with lots of fat around the neck.
The problem we now had to worry about was if she had ingested oil. April managed to get her to eat charcoal on some cauliflower leaves and was sure that the mayonnaise would help expunge any oil from her stomach. We left her to rest overnight and see how she was doing in the morning. Saturday brought more cheer as our little turtle seemed to be much more active. We managed to clean more oil from the head and mouth and let the turtle rest. The final test was to see if she could still dive and utilise her buoyancy. Throughout the day, all the Expedition Members and staff took it in turns to watch our turtle and see if she could dive.
Finally, on Sunday morning, as we watched her take several deep breaths, our little charge passed her final test and dived to the bottom of our tank. Confident in the knowledge that she had suffered little from her ordeal, and aware that the best place for her was the Caribbean Sea, we decided to release her as soon as possible. Our local tourist lodge ‘Vista del Mar’ had taken a keen interest in the rescue operation. We recruited the help of Lester, one of their office staff to do the final release.
Our little turtle was noticeably sleepy when we released her on the beach outside the Lodge, but after a few waves had lapped around her flippers, she finally got her sense of direction and made a break for the sea. We watched her swimming out to meet the breaking waves, worried that she may be washed back to the shore. We had no reason to fret though as we watched her dive under each wave.
We last saw her about 70 meters from the shore, when she took a final dive and passed the last breaking wave. Talking to Lisa on the way back to base, she said, “It is surprising how quickly I became attached to the little turtle. It was heart breaking when we first discovered her and she could hardly move. I was worried that she wouldn’t survive the walk back to base, let alone the clean up. I feel proud and touched that we were able to help such a wonderful creature and watch it swim away back to the sea, where it belongs!”
Slick recovery
0 comments:
Post a Comment