New England Aquarium Sea Turtle Release 2009 Part II
Orion a Kemp's Ridley sea turtle and the last of our in-house 2008 cold stunned animals made its way back into the Atlantic Ocean yesterday.
The last CT scan on the turtle showed improvement to the lung which had a severe pneumonia. Orion has been eating and swimming well for awhile. After a final exam the turtle was deemed able to be released.
With the colder months approaching, we decided to bring Orion a little further south than the others that we released at the end of August. So we loaded the turtle up early yesterday morning and drove down to Long Island to release Orion back into the Atlantic Ocean. This will give Orion a slight advantage over Goose who, at this time, is getting closer to leaving Long Island Sound and Orion should be in about the same area as the other Ridleys we released from Dowse's Beach.
We were able to release the turtle with the help of our colleagues at The Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation. We helped kick off their beach cleaning effort on International Beach Cleanup Day at Ponqougue Beach in Hampton Bays.
Then challenged the waves (the other turtles had it easy) and back into the Atlantic the turtle went.
Also a big thank you to the great people at the Cross Sound Ferry for all your help over the past turtle season!
(You can learn more about Orion! He is featured in the "Stressed Out Sea Turtles" chapter of the Aquarium's online Blue Impact video tour.)
-Adam
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The last CT scan on the turtle showed improvement to the lung which had a severe pneumonia. Orion has been eating and swimming well for awhile. After a final exam the turtle was deemed able to be released.
With the colder months approaching, we decided to bring Orion a little further south than the others that we released at the end of August. So we loaded the turtle up early yesterday morning and drove down to Long Island to release Orion back into the Atlantic Ocean. This will give Orion a slight advantage over Goose who, at this time, is getting closer to leaving Long Island Sound and Orion should be in about the same area as the other Ridleys we released from Dowse's Beach.
We were able to release the turtle with the help of our colleagues at The Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation. We helped kick off their beach cleaning effort on International Beach Cleanup Day at Ponqougue Beach in Hampton Bays.
After we gave a quick introduction of Orion to the volunteers we headed down to the beach.
Once on the beach Julika from the Riverhead Foundation gave a quick talk about safety and to keep the turtles path to the ocean free.
Then we placed Orion on the sand and immediately the turtle started for the ocean!
Orion took a quick pause to catch its breath.
Then challenged the waves (the other turtles had it easy) and back into the Atlantic the turtle went.
Way to go Orion!
We would like to thank the awesome group at Riverhead for providing such a lovely day and beautiful beach to send Orion home!
Also a big thank you to the great people at the Cross Sound Ferry for all your help over the past turtle season!
(You can learn more about Orion! He is featured in the "Stressed Out Sea Turtles" chapter of the Aquarium's online Blue Impact video tour.)
-Adam
subscribe Labels: Cross Sound Ferry, Kemp's ridley sea turtle, Orion, release, Riverhead Foundation
posted by Adam at
12:33 PM
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