Turtle swept 3,000 miles off course nursed back to health in Kerry 

Puncture marks on the turtle's shell — christened Solstice due to the time of year — have also led rescuers to believe she survived an attack from a shark or a sea lion.

While loggerhead turtles occasionally get swept thousands of miles off course across the Atlantic, the arrival of the endangered grass-eating turtle, also known as a greenback turtle, has astonished experts.

“Only 12 have been washed ashore in Europe, and only one has survived up until now”, said Kevin Flannery, director of Dingle Oceanworld Aquarium, “But this lady is looking good.” 

“This is only my second time ever coming across one of these green turtles”, said the marine biologist, who been nursing storm-tossed and stranded loggerheads back to life for the past 30 years. “She was in a pretty poor state.

“She was covered in weed and barely able to lift her head. She is about six or seven and about the size of a large dinner plate.

“She came about 3,000 miles either from the US or up from Cape Verde or the Canary Islands. It washed up in Quilty on Christmas Eve and was given to the Hogsprickle hedgehog rescue centre, who contacted us and we got the turtle on Stephen’s Day.” 

He believes the young turtle had also had a narrow escape with a large marine mammal.

“Something had attempted to bite it, something extremely large, a good while back, because it has two indentations on top of the carapace, or shell, and underneath. I think it was either a seal or a shark attempted to bite it, but it survived."

After being tossed across the Atlantic, he said the turtle was in a “cold-stunned” state, a condition where the turtle becomes immobilised due to sudden drops in water temperature.

“It’s like a person suffering from hypothermia and the body begins to shut down and it was only a period of time until it would die, she couldn’t move or swim.

“The vet figured she had respiratory problems and meningitis.” 

He said it had taken days of intensive care to nurse the turtle back to good health using methods which have worked with stranded species like loggerheads in the past. 

“We told the woman who had her in Clare to slightly heat the turtle. We got our vets to get the warm saline solution into it and to get the antibiotics into it.

“That’s what we do, we get the temperature up as rapid as possible but slowly. I’m very happy with it, initially it was totally confused and in a very poor state.

“But our veterinarian people and our aquarist, Maria Foley, have got her up and running. “Now she is very active, she’s quite happy.” 

But he said it was very hard to care for the world’s largest species of hard-shelled turtles during an Irish winter.

“They’re very hard to keep because they’re vegetarians, they live off eel grass, which grows near the seashore, they are herbivores.

“We’ve been trying a bit of fish, because it’s hard to get eel grass this time of year because it dies back.

He added it was “vital” to get her back to the tropical waters of the Canaries as soon as possible.

“They are seriously endangered worldwide — it’s mostly because their eggs are being taken because they live in close to the shore where they can feed on this weed all the time.” 

He said they were in “deep trouble” as a species.

The marine biologist is appealing directly to Aer Lingus to help to transport the stricken young turtle back to the African coast.

“Because of its rarity we want to get it back to its natural habitat.

“We will approach the National Parks and Wildlife Service and Aer Lingus to help us get her back down, we will pay for the ticket but we need to do it as soon as possible. We need to get it back to the Canaries.”