Sea Turtle Rescue - Journal Companion Episode

This is the Animal Rescue Adventures podcast companion episode for Sea Turtles. Go behind those waves to learn about the oldest creature on the planet, Marina's rescue story that started and ended with humans, and how we can help endangered turtle species like Marina. This episode is great to complete with the journal or on it's own. 

Transcript

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Welcome back, explorers. I'm Steph, and this is the audio companion episode for the Animal Rescue Adventures Journal. And today we're going way back in time. Like way back. I'm talking a hundred million years ago, before humans, before the first dogs or cats, even before most dinosaurs. What was swimming in the ocean back then? Sea turtles, that's right. Today's animal has been on Earth longer than almost anything else alive today. Meets Marina. Sea turtles are one of my absolute favorite animals, and I think after today, they might be yours too. Here's why. Sea turtles can navigate like a built-in GPS. They can find their way back to the exact beach where they were born, even 30 years later. A mama sea turtle can lay up to a hundred eggs in one nest, all buried in the warm sand. Leatherback sea turtles eat jellyfish. They help keep the ocean balanced and healthy. Some sea turtles swim over 1400 miles in a single journey. That's like swimming from Florida all the way to Canada. Sea turtles have been around since the age of dinosaurs. They are living, swimming, breathing pieces of ancient history. 100 million years of surviving everything the ocean throws at them. But now, sea turtles are facing something that they never evolved to handle. Us and the things we leave behind. This is Marina's story, and there's something really important that I want you to remember. Marina was spotted by a fishing boat off the coast of South Carolina, floating at the surface of the water. Sea turtles usually dive deep, so a turtle just floating there is a bad sign. The fisherman knew something was wrong. He radioed for help immediately. When rescuers arrived, they found Marina barely moving, her eyes glassy, her movements sluggish. They got her out of the water carefully and rushed her to the Sea Turtle Hospital at the South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston. And here's the part I want you to really hear. The vets found plastic inside of her. A plastic bag, the kind people use at grocery stores, had made its way into the ocean. Marina saw it floating in the water. From underneath, the plastic bag looks like a jellyfish, so Marina ate it. The plastic was making Marina's body unable to work properly. She couldn't dive, couldn't eat real food, and couldn't swim. The vet team spent months treating her, giving her special fluids, helping her body slowly heal from the inside out. It was long and difficult work. But the team never gave up. Day by day, week by week, Marina got stronger. She started eating again. She started diving in her tank. She started acting like herself. The day Marina was released back into the Atlantic Ocean, the rescue team fitted her with a tiny satellite tag so scientists could track her journey. And she didn't even pause at the shore. She slipped into the water, dove deep, and was gone. Home at last. Explorer. Marina's story is powerful, and so is your mission. Because this time, what hurt Marina is something we use every single day. Here's how you can change that. Say no to plastic bags. Ask your family to use reusable shopping bags instead. It's a small swap that makes a huge difference. Never release balloons outside. They float up, come back down into the ocean, and look like jellyfish to sea turtles. Pick up litter, especially near water. Even trash that's miles from the beach can wash into the ocean. Ask a grown-up to visit scaquarium.org slash sea turtle care center. You can follow rescue turtles and even donate to their care. Marina is out there right now, swimming somewhere in the Atlantic, doing what sea turtles have done for a hundred million years. She made it because someone noticed someone cared and someone acted. That someone could be you. Every plastic bag you swap, every piece of trash you pick up, you are protecting an animal that has survived since the time of dinosaurs. That's pretty extraordinary, Explorer. And so are you. I'm Steph. This is Animal Rescue Adventures. See you next time.