A giant turtle was found in the Vadu beach area in Romania early last week, and it was released back into the sea on the southern area of the Romanian Black Sea coast. Experts with the Museum Complex of Nature Sciences in Constanta took good care of the unexpected visitor.
The turtle belongs to the Caretta Caretta species and it has been taken out of “2 Mai-Vama Veche” reservation and then thrown on the high seas.
The manager of the Museum Complex of the Nature Science in Constanta, Adrian Bâlbă explained that the marine reptile couldn’t have adjusted to the captivity, expressing hope it can swim back to its home.
The giant turtle, which actually lives in the Mediterranean, has been found last Tuesday on the Vadu beach in Constanta county. The reptile has been immediately taken over by the marine biologists.
The turtle has been accidentally found on the beach, near a local fishery known as “The Frog’s Fisherie”. It would have accidentally reached the Black Sea.
“It looked dystrophic for it hasn’t been able to eat properly on its way to the Black Sea. Tricked by the warm waters and tides of the Black Sea, it went up north, but its biology doesn’t fit this area, it needs a rocky sea bottom where it can feed itself, it needs an area where prawns and sea foods can be found,” said the science museum manager, Adrian Bâlbă.
He said that this species of marine turtle, Caretta caretta, or the loggerhead sea turtle, has its closest home in Zakynthos island in Greece, where there is nesting site, with more than 3,000 nests per year. Because of this, Greek authorities do not allow planes to take off or land at night in Zakynthos due to the nesting turtles. In addition to the Greek coast, the coastlines of Cyprus and Turkey are also common nesting sites.
“One specimen can reach up to 200-300 and even 500 kilos and two metres in diameter. It can swim 40 km per hour some tens of sea miles. When it reaches large sizes it usually leaves the Mediterranean and migrates to the Atlantic Ocean, to head to the Sargassum Sea, another beloved nesting place,” the manager said.
Loggerhead sea turtles spend most of their lives in the open ocean and in shallow coastal waters. They rarely come ashore, except for the females’ brief visits to construct nests and deposit eggs. Hatchling loggerhead turtles live in floating mats of Sargassum algae.
One record of this turtle was made once in Ireland when a specimen washed ashore on Ballyhealy Beach in Co. Wexford.
And to prove that it is an important creature, the loggerhead sea turtle appears on the $1000 Colombian Peso coin. In the United States the loggerhead sea turtle is the official state reptile of South Carolina and also the state saltwater reptile of Florida.