Irish naval officers have returned five loggerhead turtles to the wild after the young reptiles washed up on Ireland\u2019s west coast in unprecedented numbers earlier this summer.<\/p>\n
Marine experts believe the juveniles were swept from the Cape Verde, off Africa, or the US by a mix of strong winds and marine heatwaves before becoming \u201ccold-stunned\u201d as they drifted into Irish waters.<\/p>\n
The turtles \u2014 Cleo, Mara, Tony, Knesaii, and Columbus \u2014 were carried aboard the L\u00c9 Samuel Beckett in boxes marked with their names during a short quayside ceremony.<\/p>\n
The rare reptiles were then taken out to the open ocean and released in warmer waters down towards Spain.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crew of L\u00c9 Samuel Beckett were all smiles as they safely loaded the turtles into the ship\u2019s RHIBs, prior to releasing them back into the wild,\u201d said naval press officer Lieutenant Commander Jason O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n
The mission began when Kevin Flannery, marine biologist and founder of Dingle Oceanworld, asked the navy to help return the rescued turtles, which were found at beaches in Kerry, Clare, Galway, and Mayo, to warmer waters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe navy was brilliant when we brought them down this week. We are very grateful to them. I would say it’s unique to have a naval service release five of them at this point in time,” Mr Flannery said.<\/p>\n
“They were fascinated with them. One or two of them had dealt with Crog\u00e1, another turtle they brought down a few years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest turtle came in February to Galway, it\u2019s about six or seven years and the four young ones, which came in the summer, are very young, barely two or three years old.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d get an odd one before, but never anything like this.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the start of the week, Captain Lieutenant Commander Caroline Scanlon received a full briefing from Mr Flannery, who stressed the turtles should only be freed when the sea reached at least 19\u201320C.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ship\u2019s crew are excited to have these amazing creatures onboard and several sailors volunteered to assist in minding the turtles during the voyage.\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
After departing the naval base, engineering staff closely monitored sea temperatures using the ship\u2019s onboard sensors.<\/p>\n
Once several consistent readings above 19\u00b0C were confirmed, the crew launched the ship\u2019s RHIBs, and one by one, the crew carefully released the turtles back into the ocean.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll five turtles swam away at speed \u2014 strong and eager to continue their journey toward warmer waters\u201d, said a naval officer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish naval officers have returned five loggerhead turtles to the wild after the young reptiles washed up on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,9217,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-87355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-defence-forces","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-world","22":"tag-world-news","23":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}