SeaLIFE staff talk about the release of Loggerhead Turtle Nazare
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00:00So we got a phone call from British Divers marine life rescuers and they'd
00:04been reports of a loggerhead turtle stranding on Barrow-in-Furness Beach and
00:08they'd managed to pick up the turtle and had said they're going to bring it down
00:12to our facility at Blackpool Sea Life where we could assess her and see what's
00:16going on because at that point they weren't sure if she was in any condition
00:20or if she was alive basically. Okay so once the little van had turned up with
00:25the the turtle in the back we could see she was very much a cold stunned turtle
00:29her core temperature was 13 degrees and she should be like well into the 20s so
00:35she was motionless she was just about making some movements with her eyes and
00:40she was completely covered all over a shell in algaes and seaweeds like she'd
00:44been floating around in the sea for some time and so we got her in and started
00:49doing some more assessments and seeing what we can find out about her and that's
00:52when we noticed she had a satellite tag so we realized she must have been
00:55rescued earlier in her life basically because it was a pretty solid big tag but
01:01that gave us a window to ask around all different aquariums and zoos around
01:05Europe and find out exactly where she was from which was amazing because
01:10within 24 hours we had the old health records we found out that she was
01:14released from the coast of France from La Roche aquarium where she'd been
01:21rehabilitated in June in 2023 so it wasn't the first time she'd been in a
01:25facility like ours okay so yeah once we'd got some of the information back
01:30from La Roche we could actually see amazingly on the website the satellite
01:34tag showed her going from France she then turned away towards Ireland
01:39unfortunately and that got close to December and the tag stopped beeping
01:43around December time just off the coast of Ireland and that means she probably
01:47got stuck in the storms then and disappeared and that's where it sort of
01:50dragged around and up to us in well into Bower in Furness by February time
01:54so she'd had a bit of a rough couple of months we reckon from the condition of
01:58her okay so when Nazare first arrived at the centre and we'd finished assessing
02:02her we got her into an enclosure where we could start to control raising her
02:07temperature because the most important thing was to not brush this although she
02:11was very cold and very sick she could only go up by the maximum of a degree a
02:16day in a core temperature or else it could have caused her even more issues
02:20so the first thing we did was set her up in this start to clean her off start
02:24to look at how to rehydrate her and we got local vets in we got vets from
02:28International Voot Zoo Veterinary Group to do x-rays so we could check her whole
02:32body out and that's when we found out that she she did have pneumonia so we
02:36started the treatment for pneumonia as well but this involved daily injections
02:40and turning her on her side and she was a 35 kilo turtle so it was quite
02:44difficult to maneuver her we're pumping in solutions into her to start
02:48rehydrating her and it took all the team sort of around the clock to be
02:53doing this we had a little camera set up so we could watch her to make sure once
02:58we started adding water that she wasn't going to drown because she was very weak
03:00so we have to be checking her every hour checking her core temperature and it was
03:04a good solid two three weeks of around-the-clock care really until she
03:10she really started to come back to life which is amazing to see okay so once we
03:14saw that Nazare was starting to stabilize and it was really promising
03:18signs her temperature was coming up she was taking on food we could look to then
03:22the next stage of her life really and that was contacting Todd and his team
03:27over in Scarborough Sea Life because we knew that they've done this before
03:30they're very capable at rehabilitating animals and they had a perfect quarantine
03:36tank to take her to her next stage and then we also knew she could live in
03:40their ocean tank for a little bit where she could really start to move and
03:43strengthen up and look to release her back into the wild hopefully well I
03:47first found out about Nazare from a phone call from Marine Environmental
03:51Monitoring who kind of keep a track of all the strandings around the UK of sea
03:56turtles and they asked for a contact for Blackpool and I was I was able to kindly
04:01provide Scott's details and from there I thought that was kind of my only part to
04:06play in in Nazare's journey but then after a few weeks after Scott and his
04:10team did an amazing job of her rehabilitation recovery I got a contact
04:16to contacted to ask whether or not I was able to help and support that and that
04:20was in bringing her over to Scarborough to then hopefully finish her
04:24rehabilitation here. The next step for us once we found out she was going to
04:29join us at Scarborough Sea Life Centre was to organize her movement over to us
04:32so that meant that I had to kind of get everything ready in terms of a transport
04:36box it was in the middle of winter so one of the things we have to be really
04:40careful with is the air-to-temperature so she actually moved in the front of
04:44the van with me for the journey over from Blackpool and then once we received
04:48her she moved into our quarantine tank and that lengthy process of her initial
04:52recovery was still ongoing so we were closely monitoring her behavior her
04:57actions her feeding even how often she was pooping and then from there once she
05:02was stabilized and everybody was happy the vets were happy her bloods were all
05:05looking good we were able to then move her and transition her into our ocean
05:08tank and that meant that we could provide her with the best conditions and
05:11best environment to give her the ability to survive in the wild so that means
05:15building up those muscles to start diving again properly and then the long
05:21lengthy process of getting the paperwork sorted to bring her over here to the
05:25Azores started. So last year we actually rehabilitated a turtle and released it
05:31back here in the Azores and there were lots of lessons learned from there
05:33unfortunately it took over 18 months to get Iona to be released back to the
05:38wild now the big problem with that was because of all the paperwork associated
05:42we left the European Union and that meant that there was lots of different
05:46things that needed to change to allow us to bring her over to the Azores and that
05:50process took over nine months in in terms of Iona's rehabilitation but that
05:55meant the rehabilitation process could be loads quicker for Nazare and in the
05:59end it only took about five six months although we had a few challenges still
06:03in being able to bring her over to the Azores. The other learnings that
06:08we really had as well are just kind of on a personal and team level it was the
06:11first turtle we rehabilitated with Iona so we were learning along the way but
06:16thankfully those learnings were able to apply to Nazare and then that's
06:20meant that her process of recovery was much quicker and she's probably in some
06:24respects in a better condition than we were able to release Iona in.
06:28We've made the journey from sea life centres in the UK to the amazing warm
06:33blue waters of the Azores for the release of the loggerhead sea turtle
06:37Nazare. This is the culmination of the hard work and dedication from animal
06:41care teams at sea life and across other aquariums in Europe. Unfortunately in
06:47recent years with early winter storms we've seen an increasing number of sea
06:50turtle stranded not just in the UK but across Europe and aquariums are playing
06:55a pivotal part in their recovery, rehabilitation and eventual release back
06:59to the wild. So the release went to plan which is amazing we managed to get
07:05Nazare to the perfect spot and get her into the water and she didn't mess about
07:11as soon as we put her in she just spun around darted off and the speed on her
07:15was absolutely incredible so good to see this animal that was found on Barrow
07:20Beach just down the road from us covered in sand and looking pretty messy
07:25and to see her then so strong that she can power off into this lovely blue
07:29ocean was it's pretty cool experience really it's really good to know that
07:32she's happy and well now. So we've just released Nazare back into the Atlantic
07:36Ocean and it was simply incredible she kind of went into the water kind of had
07:41a little bit of a look around and before you know it she rocketed off into the
07:44you know the vast blue that we you could see kind of before you and we didn't
07:49really get chance to say goodbye it was that it was that quick and it was just
07:53brilliant in the sense that it was the culmination of lots of different teams
07:56coming together within sea life within Europe at European aquariums with
08:01imported Pim Aquarium here to allow this turtle to go back to the wild and
08:05that's what it's all about for us it's about giving something back and giving
08:08an animal a second chance.