After Months of Rehab, Moira the Cold-Stunned Sea Turtle Has Been Returned to the Wild
When fishermen found the endangered loggerhead sea turtle off Vancouver Island in February, she was listlessly floating in a bed of kelp
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In February, a father and son were checking crab traps off Vancouver Island when they spotted an 80-pound loggerhead sea turtle floating in a kelp bed. The endangered turtle was hypothermic and lethargic, stunned by the chilly waters of Pedder Bay. She was also very far from her usual home in the subtropics.
The fishermen reported the turtle to wildlife authorities, who rescued the listless turtle and transported her to the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Society. Staff there named her Moira, after Moira Rose (played by Catherine O'Hara) in the TV show “Schitt’s Creek.”
Now, after months of rehabilitation and care, Moira has returned to the wild. Last month, biologists released Moira into the warm waters off San Diego Bay in California. Rescuers have been tracking her movements via a satellite tag attached to her shell, and they say she is instinctually swimming south toward Mexico.
“She's heading in the right direction,” Jeni Smith, the rescue supervisor at SeaWorld San Diego, tells NBC Los Angeles.
When Moira was initially discovered off the southern tip of Vancouver Island, her core body temperature was just 47 degrees Fahrenheit—well below the normal range of 68 to 77 degrees, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Teri Figueroa. (As cold-blooded animals, loggerheads cannot regulate their own body temperature and instead rely on external heat sources.)
She was only the second confirmed loggerhead to be found off British Columbia on Canada’s West Coast. The other previous known sighting occurred in 2015, roughly 50 nautical miles west of Tofino, Vancouver Island, reports the Canadian Press’ Chuck Chiang.
But what was she doing so far north, roughly 500 nautical miles away from her typical northernmost range in the Pacific Ocean? Biologists aren’t totally sure, but they suspect she may have gotten caught up in ocean currents. The same thing sometimes happens to turtles on North America’s East Coast.
“The working hypothesis is she just got into currents that started bringing her more northward, and then as water progressively got colder and colder and she slowed down, she couldn't swim against those currents and just was at the mercy of wherever those currents would take her," Martin Haulena, the head veterinarian at Vancouver Aquarium and the executive director of the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Society, told CTV News Vancouver’s Ian Holliday in February.
Once her body temperature plummeted, Moira could no longer eat or swim. She was left floating in the water in “essentially a comatose state,” Haulena tells the San Diego Union-Tribune.
When Moira first arrived at the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Society hospital, she was in rough shape. Her muscles were barely functioning and her heart was beating slowly. Staffers estimated that she was between 15 and 20 years old.
Veterinarians had to raise her body temperature gradually. Over the course of two weeks, they slowly increased the temperature of the room she was being kept in.
Moira was transported to a quarantine pool at the Vancouver Aquarium. Eventually, her temperature stabilized at around 78 degrees and her body started working again.
Veterinarians gave Moira physical therapy and treated lesions on her shell and skin. She was able to start eating again, with her first meals consisting of surf clam, squid and shrimp, per the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Society.
Once she was healthy enough, veterinarians began coordinating with SeaWorld San Diego to release Moira back into the wild. A volunteer pilot with the nonprofit Turtles Fly Too flew Moira to California, where was placed into a shallow, 70-degree pool. Once she got acclimated, veterinarians at SeaWorld San Diego moved her into a deeper pool to make sure she could swim, dive and forage for her own food.
On October 23, biologists put Moira on a boat, then sailed 8 miles out to sea. They gave her a little push into the water, where she promptly began heading south, reports KUOW’s John Ryan.
Loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) are endangered in the United States and Canada. These shelled reptiles can be 2.5 to 3.5 feet long and can weigh between 200 and 350 pounds, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Their lifespan is unknown, but scientists estimate they can live to 70 years or more. They face numerous threats, including human-caused climate change, habitat loss, pollution, boat strikes and entanglement in fishing gear.
“With their population dwindling, each turtle—particularly females, who are essential to the species' reproductive capacity—plays a vital role in their survival,” according to a statement from the Vancouver Aquarium. “Protecting these turtles is not only about saving an individual but also about preserving marine life and maintaining the health of the broader marine ecosystem.”
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