Two aquarists who work in Hull have travelled to America to help rescue critically endangered sea turtles along their migration route.<\/p>\n
The volunteers traded their roles at The Deep aquarium for the New England aquarium, which looks after turtles who have been “cold-stunned” on their journey south to warmer waters.<\/p>\n
Aquarist Shoshana Levine said: “They come in as little ice cubes, sometimes without a heartbeat, and can completely recover.”<\/p>\n
The Deep said it was the seventh year that their volunteers had taken part in the conservation project, which involved several aquarium partners across the world.<\/p>\n
Levine along with volunteer Gavin Clarke worked in temperatures as low as -25C (-13F) to rescue turtles stranded along miles of beaches in Cape Cod.<\/p>\n
The Deep said the project started in response to the annual migration, which happens in autumn. <\/p>\n
As the water temperature drops, sea turtles begin their journey south, but can be caught out by the sudden fluctuations. <\/p>\n
The hook shape of the Cape Cod Bay traps the cold-stunned turtles which are then washed up on the beaches, according to the aquarium. <\/p>\n
The volunteers rescued stranded species such as the critically endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, leatherback turtles, green turtles, and loggerhead turtles.<\/p>\n
The Deep said survival rates for the rescued turtles were about 80-90% and that more than 470 of the creatures had been treated at the rescue centre. <\/p>\n
Levine said: “I always love working with their incredible team and helping save turtles. I’m always amazed that the turtles are able to survive.”<\/p>\n
Clarke said there had been a collective passion among staff.<\/p>\n
He added: “It’s amazing to see the network of organisations that work together and share a common goal, to get all these turtles healthy and released.”<\/p>\n
Listen to highlights from Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Sounds<\/a>, watch the latest episode of Look North<\/a> or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two aquarists who work in Hull have travelled to America to help rescue critically endangered sea turtles along…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-690532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}