Two rescued turtles have finished their recuperation at the Algarve’s Zoomarine and hitched a lift with the Navy to be released far from the coast.
The sea turtles have been recovering and putting on weight at Zoomarine’s special recovery unit run by the biologist Élio Vicente.
The common turtles (Caretta caretta), named by staff as Mar and Magnólia, have been released 12 nautical miles south of Portimão and have been fitted with microchips so they can be identified if they get into any more trouble.
According to Élio Vincente, ‘Mar’ was found by fishermen in 2015 after it had become tangled in nets. It has been at Zoomarine ever since while a lung problem was dealt with and injuries attended to.
Magnólia was found on a beach on the Dutch coast and first was sent from Rotterdam Zoo and then to Zoomarine to complete the rehabilitation. Magnólia needed to be returned to the warmer Portuguese waters and should not have been so far north.
Vicente says Magnólia has put on 10 kilos and that his case was surprising as the turtle has travelled into the colder waters of the north which is rare “as usually these turtles are in tropical and subtropical temperate waters."
The Portuguese Navy have done the honours and released the animals to the south of Portimão without incident, marking another successful outcome for the Zoomarine team.
