1-flippered turtle stays in fast lane

Speed demon Cape Romain has gone more than 3,000 miles since being treated at S.C. Aquarium

Tuesday, November 4, 2008



A loggerhead turtle that lost a flipper and was released back into the wild a year ago, is in the ocean nearby, off Cape Fear.

That's the half of it.

Cape Romain, as the turtle is called, is on his way back from a summer spent in Delaware Bay, more than a few hundred miles away. He appears to be on his way home. The "one-flippered" turtle that covered 186 miles in the first weeks after he crawled into the ocean off Isle of Palms on Nov. 3, 2007, never slowed down.

He's traveled more than 3,000 miles in all and has taken only a month so far to return from the bay.

"He's migrating south at incredible speed," said Kelly Thorvalson, S.C. Aquarium sea turtle rescue coordinator.

Cape Romain was treated at the aquarium turtle hospital last summer after his flipper caught in a crab pot and was crippled. His release wasn't unprecedented. Loggerheads are nothing if not durable, and turtles released earlier with amputated flippers have gone hundreds of miles.


Bo Petersen

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