The world according to me....

When can a sea turtle travel more than 600 km on land in one day? When it is being transferred from one rehabilitation centre to another, of course. In this case, a juvenile loggerhead turtle that was found stranded in December in South Carolina needed a place for long term recovery before release, due to some deep carapace punctures it suffered, perhaps from an alligator attack. Unfortunately, the facilities in South Carolina are currently saturated, so the only realistic solution was to transfer the turtle to one of the rehabilitation centers in neighboring North Carolina. Hence, we conducted a turtle relay race today: DuBose from South Carolina brought the turtle to me at the SC/NC border; I drove the turtle to Wendy who was waiting in New Bern; and Wendy took the turtle to Joanne who was waiting at the NEST rehabilitation facility at Roanoke Aquarium in Manteo. When its wounds are fully healed, this turtle will be released into the wild where it will soon forget about its 10-hour road trip in several different cars and across two different states.