The world according to me....

On Wednesday, twelve turtles that had been successfully rehabilitated at the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center were released back to the ocean. There were hundreds of people to witness the event, and as each turtle was carried down to the water, there were cheers and clapping. The turtle above is Corenetta, who was taken into rehab in late 2004, after being found in a pound net in Core Sound, NC: she had a fresh injury on her carapace. Everyone there was quite happy to see these turtles being returned to the ocean.

On Thursday, we had twelve dead sea turtles to deal with. They were all turtles that were found dead on the coast of NC at some point over the last two years, and had been placed in a large freezer for later use in training or education. The big freezer broke down a few weeks ago, and everything thawed. While the freezer was being fixed, there was an opportunity to take stock of what was in there and perhaps process any carcasses that were starting to decompose. We ended up pulling out over a dozen turtles to be processed. Fortunately, there were three of us (Wendy, Larisa and I) available to work on them so we were able to finish up by early afternoon. There were a few interesting things found, including a treble hook in the large intestine of a juvenile loggerhead and an index-card piece of plastic in the small intestine of another loggerhead. There were not hundreds of people there to cheer us on, although a few intrepid individuals braved the smell and came over to ask questions.