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Casale et al. (2003) reported a total of 411 records of leatherback turtles for the whole of the Mediterranean. Rees et al. (2004) reported a live leatherback turtle in the coast of Syria. From the coast of Israel, one leatherback was captured incidentally in a trawler net, and subsequently died from debris ingestion (Levy et al. 2005) and another stranded dead entangled with a static long-line (Levy 2010). Bearzi et al. (2015) reported a leatherback in the semi-enclosed Gulf of Corinth, Greece. Türkozan & Kaska (2010) summarized records for this species from the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts of Turkey, including a dead leatherback found stranded on the shore of the Anamur-Bozyazı Highway in southeastern Turkey (for details, see Taşkavak & Farkas 1998). Here we report on another leatherback entangled in fishing nets on the coast of Mersin.
Figure 1. Floating leatherback, entangled in fishing net, off Adnan Menderes Avenue, in Mersin Bay, Turkey, on 11 May 2016.
On 11 May 2016, a leatherback was observed in Mersin Bay, about 3 m from the shoreline on Adnan Menderes Avenue, Mersin (36.7766 °N, 34.5837 °E). The leatherbacks head, front right and left flippers were entangled in a piece of net that appeared to have been clipped from a larger net, presumably by a fisherman. The leatherback was observed passively floating at the surface of the water, entangled in the piece of net. One of the authors (AHU) swam to the turtle and cut the net with clippers, in order to free the head and right front flipper. Subsequently, the turtle was observed to breath and use its flippers. Soon after, the turtle dove beneath the surface of the water before the net attached to the left front flipper could be freed. The turtle appeared to swim away easily, and it was assumed that the remaining net would fall off eventually. The turtle was not measured and sex was not verified. The total length of the turtle was less than the height of the researcher who freed it (180 cm). The turtle was photographed but it is not possible to discern tail length (Fig. 1). We recommend that efforts should be made to include the tail in photographs of future incidents of stranded turtles, to allow sex to be assigned.
Local fishermen report that they occasionally encounter leatherbacks (Oruç 2001). To date, there are three records of leatherbacks from the Aegean coasts of Turkey (Taşkavak et. al. 1998; Taşkavak & Farkas 1998; Taşkavak et. al. 2015) and five records of leatherback from southern coasts of Turkey (Baran & Kasparek 1989; Oruç et al. 1997; Oruç 2001; Taşkavak & Farkas 1998; Sönmez et al. 2008) (Table 1). This new record of the leatherback turtle is reported from the coast of Mersin, Turkey, increasing the total number of records in southern coasts of Turkey to six and the total number of records in coasts of Turkey to nine.
Table 1. Reports of the leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), coasts of Turkey.
Acknowledgements. We thank the Department of Municipal Police of Mersin Metropolitan Municipality for alerting us to this occurrence.
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