Last night, Sandy had a very exciting recapture on the south end of Singer Island (Palm Beach Shores)
I was in the office when she called to say she found her first leatherback turtle of the season. She told me the turtle’s name, and I quickly looked her up in our database and told her who it was. After a few minutes of chatting about her first turtle, I realized that it was Venus! We all thought that we would never see Venus again after her last encounter in 2006.
Venus had been hit by a large boat just prior to nesting that season and it was very hard for us to watch her crawl up and down the beach and throw as much sand as she did. The boat had severely lacerated her carapace and the wound was bleeding and full of sand and debris. She seemed to put a lot of effort into making her nests, even though she was bleeding from her cracked open carapace. Many of us that observed her, really thought that there was little chance for her to survive her terrible injuries.
We really should have known better though! She is a reptile and a sea turtle! These girls have amazing abilities to heal and survive terrible injuries. Browse around the rehab blog
where Sandy and her team post stories about sea turtle injuries and you will be amazed at what these animals can suffer and overcome. Some of the injuries are really quite bad, and many of the more traumatic injuries are caused by humans and our reckless fishing practices (Trilby, Sparrow) or careless boaters traveling too fast over our local reefs. (Ted)
How can they overcome such injuries? These are extremely tough animals and they have been surviving for millions of years in spite of us. In the recent article published at www.sciencenews.org, Dr. Paul Klein from the University of Florida is quoted as saying that:
"It seems Mother Nature has built in a circulating system of antimicrobial factories that protect the animals while they are waiting to develop the cell-mediated response that we would develop quickly"
Reptiles are tough animals, and they have evolved to survive!
As Venus slipped back into the sea at about 2am, Sandy and I sat in awe for a few minutes and talked about the amazing ability of sea turtles to survive, given their terrible injuries.
There was only one leatherback last night, but it was awesome to see her!
