Dead Turtle Found In Maltese Waters
At the weekend a dead female turtle was found in Maltese waters, entangled with what appears to be discarded fishing line.
On August 14, two local divers reported their encounter with a dead turtle lying at the bottom of the sea due to entanglement during one of their dives, in the area of Wied i-Zurrieq.
Shortly after, a recovery mission was carried out with the collaboration of the Nature Trust’s Wildlife Rescue Team, and the environmental NGO Žibel, with the operation taking about two hours.
“She died of suffocation as she could not surface again to breathe and she was internally suffering from haemorrhage by swallowing a hook that broke her internally,” said one of the people accompanying the diver.
“The turtle was an adult female specimen of about 20-25 years, with a line coming out of the back, indicating the ingestion of the hook,” explained Nature Trust.
“The line was tangled and stuck to the rock, preventing the turtle from coming up for air. The turtle’s struggles for the surface also caused internal damage by pulling on the line and hook.”
“The divers took underwater scooters to the place of the turtle where they wrapped the turtle in a net and secured it with a rope,” said the founder of Żibel Andrew Schembri to Lovin Malta.
“Once secure, two lift bags were attached to the turtle and sent to the surface where Zibel’s boat crew collected it and took it to shore where the Wildlife Rescue Team took a reading and document the sample.”
The divers involved in the rescue were Anna Degiorgio and Nunzio Dugo, together with Arek, Jonathan and Andrew from the Žibel team, and Angelique and Clare Degiorgio from the Wildlife Rescue Team.
This case is a true testament to the damage that discarded items can cause to marine animals, with turtles often being injured or even losing their lives due to entanglement or suffocation.
What do you make of this finding?