A major killer of turtles

When we visited the two wildlife recovery centres in the Canary Islands, one on the island of Gran Canaria and the other here on Tenerife, we learned that the two biggest killers of marine life are plastic and fish hooks. We had seen basins of turtles recovering from operations to remove fish hooks, and x-rays of hooks embedded in the stomach and intestines of turtles. Today I came face to face with a turtle that had swallowed a fish hook.

The juvenile Loggerhead turtle had swum into the marina on the tide, weakened by a fish hook that had embedded itself in its mouth. The hook was attached to a length of fishing line, at the end of which was a small orange float. Apart from the pain and stress, it is more difficult for a turtle with a hook and float to dive and stay underwater to forage for food as the float would always be pulling it to the surface. Gradually, the turtle would eat less and less, weakening slowly every day. Ultimately, it will die. But it will take a long time before that happens.

Many people involved in the rescue

This Loggerhead was lucky that it floated into the marina and that David, one of the marineros – marina staff – had spotted it and knew exactly what to do. The first thing he did was to phone the Centro de Recuperación de Fauna Silvestre (Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre for Wildlife) in La Laguna to tell them about the turtle and to give directions to the marina to come and pick it up. I just happened to walk by at this point to see him on the walkie-talkie and an English couple, Jan and Tony on the Muscade, waving at me to alert me to the turtle. Within minutes many people from the marina were involved in a rescue, led by David. It was wonderful to see.

David borrowed a kayak from our neighbour Rafa on the Fidji; Tony got into his dinghy; and, any excuse to be in the water, I jumped in with mask, snorkel and fins. While the turtle was weak, it still had the strength to swim quickly away from us and dive down for spurts of five minutes or so. It could then come up anywhere, so we spread out and kept a close look out. The only thing we could do was to gently ‘chase’ it and let it tire itself so that we could eventually catch it. It took a couple of hours but finally a man in David’s kayak caught the fishing line and from the water I was able to hold the turtle by its carapace high enough that the men could lift it out of the water and into the kayak. Jubilation! The people watching started clapping and I shouted to David how wonderful he was and how happy I was that we’d got the turtle and it now had a chance at survival. Luckily the men, inspired by pulling the turtle out of the water, had the presence of mind to haul me out too!

This turtle will survive

David then put the turtle in the bottom of one of the Submarine Safari’s boats, and one of their staff, a former vet, tried to remove the fishing hook while waiting for the wildlife recovery centre to arrive. We transferred the turtle to Tony’s dinghy so that we could move it into the shade and keep the turtle in a little bit of water. David and I kept an eye on the turtle on and off. After an hour Juan, who I had met when Susana and I brought another turtle to the centre to be euthanised, from the recovery centre turned up with the van. Danny the vet handed the turtle over and explained what had happened. This turtle was lucky. The fish hook was in its mouth, and had not been swallowed. A routine operation will remove the hook, and the turtle will be held for recovery and observation for a while in a special tank. As soon as it can feed itself it will be taken to a quiet beach in the north of Tenerife and released back into the sea.

I think that this hook had broken off from a long line. Long line is a type of fishing where a very long fishing line – kilometres of it – sometimes with small buoys, are strung behind a fishing boat. Under each buoy is another fishing line with hook attached. As the boat moves, the hooks move too, glinting in the water and attracting fish to bite. Unfortunately, long lines cause the deaths of millions of other sea creatures every year. Birds, turtles, and non-commercial fish are only some of the victims.

For every stupid, thoughtless person who is too lazy to remove a fish hook on a float from the water is a good person who feels moved to help an animal in distress. It was heartening to see so many people in the marina playing a role to try to save the turtle. A big thank you to them all, in particular to David, who truly represented the care for the marine environment that all marinas should have. I hope that we will always meet marineros like him wherever we go.