Stranded turtle's 16-hour road trip to recovery
An animal lover has made a 16-hour round trip across southern Western Australia to play taxi driver for a stranded baby turtle.
After spotting an urgent late-night call-out for a volunteer driver, Letesha Heslewood drove nearly 700 kilometres from Bunbury to Esperance to collect the tiny patient and bring him back to the South West city for rehabilitation.
The juvenile loggerhead, nicknamed Shaggy for the thick green algae covering his shell, was spotted floating in seaweed off the Esperance coast and brought to the local wildlife hospital early last week.
Loggerheads are a tropical species, meaning the chilly southern waters leave them dangerously cold and dehydrated, making a fast transfer to specialised care critical.
Letesha Heslewood drove almost 700km to Esperance to bring the turtle back to Bunbury for care. (Supplied: Dolphin Discovery Centre)
By the time Ms Heslewood arrived in Esperance, staff were cleaning the algae off the turtle's shell to get him ready for transport.
"When I collected him, he looked picture perfect. He was gorgeous; the colouring on him was outstanding," she said.
The return trip to Bunbury was punctuated by a number of pit stops.
"They wanted me to pull over every couple of hours for rest and to give him a little bit of a splashdown," she said.
"They gave me some really clean water in a jar to splash over his eyes and his back every couple of hours to keep him comfortable, and he absolutely loved that.
Shaggy received routine water breaks on his Esperance-Bunbury road trip. (Supplied: Letesha Heslewood)
"He really responded to the water touching him, which was just the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life."
A retail worker who rarely gets to spend time with wildlife, the marathon rescue mission was one Ms Heslewood won't soon forget.
She now hopes to repeat the experience, officially registering as a volunteer wildlife transport officer.
"I knew I was going to enjoy doing it, but it filled something in my heart that I didn't know was missing," she said.
Colder detour not unusual for turtles
Shaggy is now recovering in a heated tank at Bunbury's Dolphin Discovery Centre, the second loggerhead to come into the team's care in recent weeks.
The turtle is being cared for at Bunbury's Dolphin Discovery Centre. (ABC News: Amelia Searson)
A centre spokesperson said that while they regularly see rescued turtles from nearby beaches like Binningup and Peppermint Grove, finding them as far south as Esperance was rarer.
But Marine Scientist Scott Whiting, from WA's Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, said the turtles' most routine nesting grounds were around Ningaloo and Shark Bay.
But he said there were a number of natural factors in play behind them turning up along WA's southern coast.
Ms Heslewood now hopes to register as an official volunteer wildlife transport officer. (Supplied: Letesha Heslewood)
"It's not uncommon for turtles to wash up; they get sick like every other animal and humans as well," he said.
"Sometimes they could have a shark wound they're trying to recover from, or sometimes they might even come in closer to shore because it's warmer water, there's less wave action, it's calmer, and they can recover."
Shaggy will remain in care in Bunbury until April next year, when staff plan to transport him north to Exmouth for release off the Ningaloo coast.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.