Loggerhead turtles current-riding 20,000km round-trip

A marine biologist has helped fill in the so-called lost years of Australia’s loggerhead turtles by discovering they are using ocean currents to undertake a 20,000-kilometre, round trip across the Pacific Ocean.

Dr Michelle Boyle, of the School of Marine and Tropical Ecology at James Cook University, Queensland, and colleagues used genetic testing to track the migratory behaviour of the Australian-born loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta), which hatches in rookeries on the Queensland coast.

Boyle says it appears the endangered turtles use the ocean currents that make up the South Pacific gyre to travel across the southern Pacific Ocean to the waters off Peru and Chile.

In scenes reminiscent of the animated movie Finding Nemo, they then pick up the East Australian Current (EAC), which they “ride” down the coast of eastern Australia.

From ABC Science, Full Article HERE

Turtle survives after dentist filling

A rare turtle that survived being bashed against rocks when he washed up on a Cornish beach has had his shell patched up using dental paste.

The half-metre-long loggerhead turtle was underweight, malnourished and dehydrated when he was found stranded at Widemouth Bay near Bude eight weeks ago by a woman walking her dog. Since then the turtle has been nursed back to health by staff at the Blue Reef Aquarium, Newquay, where he was nicknamed James Bond after being allocated the number 007 by the marine strandings network.

The staff were unsure of what to do about black lesions on the turtle’s shell, damage that was caused when he was tossed against the rocks. A local pharmacist and a dental surgery came to James Bond’s assistance by donating a protective paste called Orabase to provide an extra layer of protection while the injuries heal. Bond is now doing so well that he is on display at the aquarium and staff hope to release him back into the wild, possibly in the Canary Islands, in the next few months.

Form the Times Online

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