A sea turtle has washed up on the beach of Texel. It is a turtle. According to Ecomare, the fact that the animal ended up here is very special. Tomorrow morning he will move to the shelter in Diergaarde Blijdorp in Rotterdam.
The finders were surprised when they saw the animal on the beach of Texel. “We have been coming to Texel for more than forty years, but we have never experienced this,” they said when they called Ecomare with the news. According to the shelter, it is indeed ‘very exceptional that this species ends up on our coast’.
Hypothermia
The fat-headed turtle that was found is still young and therefore quite small. It weighs 1.3 kilos, its shell is 20 centimeters long. According to Ecomare, it is a species that can survive in colder water, but the North Sea is not part of its normal distribution area. It is more common in the Mediterranean Sea and the coast of Morocco. The animal appears to be hypothermic.
Yet it is not the first time that the animal has washed up here. This winter, a number of turtles have already been found on Dutch beaches and taken care of in Blijdorp. One also washed up on it beach of Castricumjust before Christmas.
Heat up slowly
On Blijdorp’s advice, the animal is now kept cool under rags soaked in seawater. Warming up must be done very carefully and wait until he has arrived in Blijdorp. To support the animal, Ecomare animal caretakers administered subcutaneous fluid with glucose. Tomorrow the turtle will go to Rotterdam.
Ecomare has taken in a fat-headed turtle once before. That was in 2008. The number of reports of turtles in the Netherlands is exceptionally high this year, she indicates. Previously it only happened once every few years. Ecomare doesn’t know why that happens.