The world according to me....

It was a long day for Wendy, who left her house around 5am to go out with the pound net fishermen. The objective was to bring back to the NOAA-Beaufort Lab any turtles that were passively caught in the nets, for sampling as part of the Loggerhead Health Assessment Project that is currently underway. One of the many turtles that Wendy helped bring aboard the boat was a juvenile loggerhead that looked vaguely familiar. The turtle already had tags (both PIT and inconel) so she knew that it had been seen before. When she got back to the Lab, she was able to confirm that it was Galveston, a loggerhead that had been found in a pound net in June 2003. At that time, Galveston weighed only 5kg, and had some injuries on its carapace, likely due to a collision with a boat. This is what she looked like in 2003:

It turned out that Galveston had some history: she was raised since hatching in the NMFS lab in Galveston, and used for testing TED efficiency and design. She was released into the wild in the Gulf of Mexico after a few years in captivity. She then apparently swam to North Carolina and into Core Sound, a popular feeding area for juvenile loggerheads. What was surprising about her was her small size: normally, the juvenile loggerheads observed in North Carolina inshore waters are larger, >50cm long and >30kg. Smaller juvenile loggerheads are almost exclusively found in Macaronesia (Azores, Madeira, Canary Islands) in the Northeast Atlantic.

When Galveston was first seen in 2003, she was admitted to the Topsail Turtle Hospital for treatment and rehabilitation. She was released in June 2004 on Topsail beach. When Wendy saw her again this month, she weighed nearly 20kg, and appeared healthy and happy. At the rate taht Galveston is growing, I suspect that the next time we see her, Wendy might not be able to pick her up singlehandedly!