A turtle found washed up on a south Wales beach this week was one of the rarest marine turtles in the world, according to an expert.
A dead juvenile Kemp's Ridley turtle washed up on Marros Sands in Carmarthenshire on Wednesday. The following day a live juvenile loggerhead came ashore on a beach in north Wales. Local expert, Rod Penrose, said the turtles may appear dead on first inspection but "could still be alive as they become cold-stunned in UK waters".
Mr Penrose, from Cardigan, is the British and Irish 'TURTLE' database manager for Marine Environmental Monitoring. He warned people to keep their eyes peeled as they visit beaches along the Welsh coast in coming days and weeks. He said: "The vast majority of the hard-shell species we get stranded on the UK coast are juvenile (dinner plate size) loggerheads or adult loggerheads that are compromised in some way (loss of flipper).
"I’m presuming these small turtles or compromised turtles struggle to fight against storm currents and strong winds and get swept off the east coast of the US and into the North Atlantic Gyre. Probably a return ticket eventually if they are lucky and stay in the Gyre, the unlucky ones get here to meet a south-westerly storm which sweeps them out of the Gyre and into our cold waters where they shut-down becoming cold-stunned."
Mr Penrose added that although they can initially appear dead, a gentle touch to the eye can "sometimes gain a response". He continued: "The worst thing you can do is to put these turtles back in the sea as they will not be able to cope with our UK temperatures and will eventually die."
The Kemp’s Ridley turtle found at Marros Sands is the rarest marine turtle in the world, at one time reduced to only breeding on one beach in Mexico. Since then eggs have been translocated to other nearby beaches in an attempt to secure this species for the future. The turtle - found by a member of the public - is thought to have only recently passed away.
The carcass was recovered by Marine Environmental Monitoring (MEM) and will be delivered to the Zoological Society of London for a full post-mortem examination as part the Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP). All sightings and strandings of marine turtles around the whole of the UK and Ireland are collated and stored by Marine Environmental Monitoring in the TURTLE database.
You can report any sightings or strandings following the UK and RoI turtle code here.
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