The Anna Maria Island Sun Newspaper

Vol. 10 No. 50 - September 15, 2010

TURTLES

Party planned for Edgar

From the September 15, 2010 Issue


PHOTO PROVIDED/MOTE MARINE LABORATORY

Edgar, a loggerhead sea turtle, will celebrate her 18th birthday at Mote Marine Laboratory on Sept. 15 from 3:30 to 5 p.m. with a party featuring cupcakes and family activities. Now more than 100 pounds, she arrived at Mote as a hatchling and is a permanent resident, as her unusually light pigmentation puts her at high risk for sunburn. The party will be at Mote’s Ann and Alfred Goldstein Marine Mammal Research and Rehabilitation Center, 1703 Ken Thompson Parkway in Sarasota. Admission is free with a Mote Aquarium ticket, which will be discounted to $5 after 1 p.m. Children 3 and younger and Mote members are free.

Hatchlings aweigh


PHOTO PROVIDED/HOLLY WEST, MOTE MARINE LABORATORY

Mote Marine Laboratory released 33 loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings last week about eight miles from shore into sargassum seaweed, which helps protect them from predators. In the seaweed, they’ll ride the Loop Current into the Atlantic Ocean to spend the next part of their life cycle in the Sargasso Sea. One of the hatchlings, nicknamed Doogie, was rescued near a dock in Palma Sola Bay, while most of the others had disoriented – likely because of lights from waterfront properties – and wandered into a storm drain in Venice.


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