July 31--A giant leatherback sea turtle, estimated to be at least 6 feet long and 1,000 pounds, was rescued Monday night in the Long Island Sound by Suffolk County police Marine Bureau officers and workers from the Riverhead Foundation.
Police said the labor-intensive rescue, which took more than three hours, began after a pleasure boater spotted the turtle at 8:40 p.m. tangled in lobster-pot lines about a mile north of Mount Sinai Harbor.
Leatherback sea turtles are on the endangered species list, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with nesting taking place in the United States between March and July.
Officials said the turtle was a female and of breeding age.
Police said Marine Bureau Officers David Goldstein and Matthew Funaro, aboard M-Delta, located the turtle about 10 minutes after receiving the radio call and said it "appeared to be in distress and having difficulty breathing." The officers attempted to free the turtle -- and, police said, managed to free one of its flippers -- but were unable to remove all the lines because of the leatherback's size and agitated state.
A second boat, manned by Officers Michael Cappiello and Matthew Wargas, then brought two members of the Riverhead Foundation Rescue Program, Julika Wocial and Kimberly Durham, to the scene.
The two crews and the rescue experts, using lights, cutting tools and poles, freed the turtle after more than three hours -- and, police said, the turtle swam off.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said that the leatherback is the largest, deepest-diving and most-migratory of all sea turtles. Adults can reach 4 to 8 feet in length and can weigh between 500 and 2,000 pounds. Females reach egg-bearing age at about 16 years.
The species can be found worldwide in tropical and temperate waters of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, according to a wildlife service's website. It can also be found in small numbers as far north as British Columbia, Newfoundland and the British Isles, and as far south as Australia, the Cape of Good Hope and Argentina, the service said.
Important turtle nesting areas in the United States include the Atlantic Coast of Florida, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico's islands of Culebra and Vieques and the Fajardo and Maunabo area on mainland Puerto Rico, the wildlife service said.
It was not immediately clear why the leatherback was in the Sound -- or if that is common.
The wildlife service said leatherbacks are predominantly black with pale spotting and have a streamlined, firm, rubbery skin with seven longitudinal ridges that cover a shell composed of a mosaic of small bones. Leatherbacks feed mainly on jellyfish, though they also eat sea urchins, squid, crustaceans, fish, blue-green algae, floating seaweeds and tunicates, according to the wildlife service.
Copyright 2012 - Newsday, Melville, N.Y.
