Young turtle hitches a ride with the Irish navy to warmer waters
Kevin Flannery with Cróga before her journey to warmer waters. Picture: Domnick Walsh
A young loggerhead sea turtle brought back to life at Dingle Aquarium is hitching a ride with the Naval Service to spend her teenage years off the Canary Islands.
Cróga, named because of her brave fight to live, was just a few months old and underweight when found upside down on a beach in Co Mayo on St Valentine’s Day.
Most likely hatched near Miami, Cróga had drifted from the Sargasso Sea, which acts as a turtle nursery, in a winter storm.
Many turtles that are loosened from the seagrass of the Sargasso end up in the Carolinas and the coast of the Americas, but this one made it all the way across to Belmullet.
Cróga was found by Cormac de Rósta and his daughters when they were walking the beach.
They alerted marine biologist and director of Dingle Ocean World, Kevin Flannery, and his wife Una, who drove from Dingle to rescue the turtle, who was in cold shock after her journey.
Mr Flannery has been rescuing turtles for decades and has overseen the repatriation of several turtles back to the warmer waters of the Canaries and the Azores.
Most of the turtles the aquarium rescues are older, such as a turtle named Molly, aged in her 20s, found near Castlegregory in 2004, with her flippers injured from a shark attack.
Cróga was revived with a mixture of saline solution injected into her lip and antibiotic treatment. She has since recovered her appetite and has gained much-needed weight.
Even though she had been in the sea for 4,000 miles "believe it or not, she was dehydrated", said Mr Flannery.
"How it survived is beyond my understanding. Usually, birds would have picked them off or a shark or something would have eaten it, or the cold shock from the water would have killed it,” Mr Flannery said, adding the tiny turtle measured just six inches.
Cróga's body temperature was raised gradually in basking waters at the aquarium.
She is now a healthy weight of more than 1kg.
Kevin Flannery began rescuing turtles before the construction of Dingle Oceanworld, reviving them in the bath in his home in West Kerry.
He has a rare dedication and keen interest in the ancient creatures, which are now an endangered species.
"It's a case of from the bath to the aquarium," Mr Flannery said of the more sophisticated surroundings he now enjoys, which includes blood tests and specialised treatments now used to revive lost turtles.
The aquarium itself is now the country’s biggest and it has taken part in a number of research projects including a satellite tracking project of the loggerhead turtle with UCC and the University of Swansea in Wales.
It is home to a variety of creatures, including sharks and penguins.
Cróga will be the eighth loggerhead to be revived at the Dingle Aquarium. All are fed on a diet of mackerel, herring, spread, and squid with added vitamins.
Cróga was taken on Thursday to Haulbowline to the Naval Service headquarters in Cork ahead of her departure on the LÉ William Butler Yeats and its crew of over 50 on a six-week deployment to the Mediterranean.
The naval ship will be part of an EU operation to enforce the United Nations arms embargo on Libya.
Previous deployments of Naval Service personnel and ships have focused on humanitarian operations, including rescuing migrants.
The navy has collaborated in a number of turtle missions previously.
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