THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 30, 1996 TAG: 9605300370
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: OCRACOKE ISLAND LENGTH: 89 lines
Paramedics thought Mama Caroline was dead when they found her big body sprawled in the surf of a Corolla beach last October.
But when they turned to leave, abandoning her to the ocean, the loggerhead sea turtle opened her almond eyes and stretched her wrinkled neck - and they knew they had to help.
Rescue workers administered CPR on the animal for more than three hours, pumping pints of saltwater from the topaz turtle's mouth. Employees from the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island arrived with a stretcher and loaded her into a truck. Then volunteers drove the turtle to Sea World in Orlando, Fla., where she spent the next seven months recovering in a heated tank.
On Wednesday morning, Mama Caroline finally returned to her home in the warm Gulf Stream waters off the Outer Banks.
As more than 55 well-wishers cheered and cried, the 250-pound member of an endangered species lumbered across the sand on a remote Ocracoke Island beach, waddled into the frothy water and disappeared into the Atlantic.
``Look at her go!'' shouted Robbie Fearn, one of eight original volunteers who helped load the turtle into the truck last October. ``She's saying, `It's about time. It's great to be back.' It's amazing to watch her swim into the ocean again.''
Mama Caroline was luckier than most ailing turtles. An average of four show up on North Carolina's sandy barrier islands each month - many already dead, the rest usually dying. This month, at least 25 turtles have turned up on the Outer Banks. Biologists are baffled.
But they're elated that Mama Caroline made her way back to sea 100 miles south of where she was found. And because she's a full-grown adult female, they say she's probably filled with eggs. Within the next couple of months, she may return to area beaches to nest.
``This was truly a success story. We don't get to see many of those. That turtle looked great,'' said Ruth Boettcher, a biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.
``She seemed to have fully recovered. A lot of that can be attributed to the volunteers - and Sea World personnel - who all took such good care of her.''
Millie Overman agreed. As coordinator of the Kitty Hawk-based Network for Endangered Sea Turtles, or NEST, Overman has sat in the cold countless nights waiting for tiny turtles to hatch from oceanfront nests so she could help them reach the ocean. She and her 63-member volunteer group have taken dozens of dead and dying turtles off Outer Banks beaches.
She said watching Mama Caroline swim back to sea Wednesday was one of the greatest events she's witnessed.
``It's very, very unusual to get one rescued, rehabbed and released,'' said Overman, who named the 4-foot-long creature ``Mama Turtle'' last fall. ``The chances of that are about one in a million. And we're getting to see it today.''
Sea World Assistant Curator Ray Davis drove 13 hours from Florida to return the turtle, which his staff named ``Caroline.'' The reptile rode all night in the back of a van, sitting on a plastic foam pad covered in thick canvas, her broad shell blanketed with petroleum jelly and wet towels to keep it moist.
``We've never had a turtle from as far away as North Carolina,'' said Davis, whose aquatic park uses money from admission fees to rehabilitate sea creatures. ``And we've never seen so many people turn out to send a turtle off.''
Davis said he wasn't sure what was wrong with Mama Caroline when she arrived in Orlando.
``It's hard to say what might've happened to this animal - may have been an old wound from a fishing hook that rotted out of her neck,'' Davis said. ``We had two full-time vets and two staff members watching after this turtle. For the last 10 days, she was on display at Sea World.
``We wanted to get her out again as soon as possible. But we had to get her body weight back up to fit the size of her shell. She had to be feeding again, regularly, on her own. All her blood-work had to be OK. And the water where we released had to be warm enough for her to acclimate after being in a temperature-controlled environment all winter.''
Because Mama Caroline has silver tags clamped onto all four flippers, turtle watchers may be able to identify her again if she swims ashore to lay eggs. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by DREW C. WILSON, The Virginian-Pilot
ABOVE - The turtle takes a final breath before disappearing beneath
the waves at an Ocracoke Island beach as Brant Wise of Colington
looks on.
LEFT - ``It's very, very unusual to get one rescued, rehabbed and
released,'' said Millie Overman of the Network for Endangered Sea
Turtles.
Photo by DREW C. WILSON, The Virginian-Pilot
More than 55 well-wishers saw her off as Mama Caroline returned to
the sea at an Ocracoke Island beach Wednesday. by CNB