The world according to me....

It must be summer again, because Wendy and I have been tagging and measuring a lot of turtles in preparation for release. Here, Wendy (with the help of two NC Aquarium interns) is measuring a 1 year old loggerhead that was raised in captivity at the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores. This turtle was discovered as a straggler at the bottom of a nest that had emerged 72 hours previously, in the summer of 2004 on Bogue Banks. The NC Aquarium system is allowed to take in several of these straggler hatchlings each year, to raise in captivity and use for education purposes. Ultimately, when they are deemed healthy and strong, they are released back into the wild. This class size of loggerhead turtle is rarely found on this side of the Atlantic. Therefore, we try to arrange for them to released into the Gulf Stream, so that they will be carried around to Macaronesia, in the northeast Atlantic, where these sizes are more often seen. This past weekend, we arranged for this little turtle to be taken on the Miss Hatteras during one of its regular pelagic bird trips. It is a good opportunity to not only get the turtles out to the Gulf Stream but also provide further education opportunities: apparently, the participants in the bird trips always enjoy learning more about sea turtles and definitely get a kick out of seeing one up close during the ride out to sea.