Meet Cassiopeia a 210 lb., 6+ hour rescue

I found her while walking on the beach one November. It had washed up and was suffering from Cold Shock. After several checks for life I was convinced she had expired. Disappointed, I started to continue the walk and then figured I’d do one last check and this time I got a little recoil of the head. She was ALIVE!!!

The next 5+ hours I stayed with her and had to continually cover her with cold wet towels to keep her from warming up too fast in the sun because that will create a worse condition for them. They must warm up very slowly when in Cold Shock.

Here, I’m laying towels dipped in the sea water on her. For the next 5 hours I had to babysit this girl to keep the Vultures and Bald Eagles away while swapping out freshly dipped towels and waiting for the Virginia Beach Aquarium Turtle Strand team to arrive.

During my stay, a couple of other walkers became interested and waited with me for the Strand team (all two of them). When they arrived, they had a large plastic tub and we lifted her in and began the ½ mile carry down the beach to the waiting cart. After lifting her up and over numerous down trees we finally arrived at the cart.

The cart push was a ½ mile upgrade push through sand and over large tree roots to get to the rescue van. The carry and push alone was well over an hour.

The Van was well equipped and had already sent some blood sample data to the lab and had some preliminary results back. We loaded her up and she was on her way across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel to her temporary home at the Virginia Beach Aquarium.

The Rest of the Story: She was rehabbing for 11 months (turtles do everything slowly) before her release. We had the opportunity to visit with her a few months after the rescue and she was still suffering from Pneumonia. After 6 months, VB Aquarium transferred her to a larger facility in SC and they eventually did the release.

Cool video of her release here:   https://www.facebook.com/scaquarium/videos/5651107858307117/

Her release begins around the 3 minute mark. Gotta love a happy ending!!

The two smaller turtles happened over the preceding few years and were far month manageable. I carried them home in a plastic grocery bag. Cassiopeia was a loggerhead and the other two were Green Ridley’s.

Peregrines

Shortly after moving from the Eastern Shore of Virgina on the Delmarva Pensinula (where all 3 turtles were found) JBS moved to Town Center in Virginia Beach. Town Center has several high-rise buildings, including the tallest building in Virginia. Within days of the move, we saw a pair of Peregrines flying around the buildings on the hunt.

Turns out they were nesting on one of the local buildings. As a lifelong Raptor fan we’ve been photographically documenting them. JBS volunteered to have a new nesting box built and installed to replace the old box which was in dis-repair and had caused the pair to abandon it to nest in a flower box on the 34th floor of a local building.

In addition to volunteering personally, JBS enjoys being a regular contributor to both the Virginia Beach Aquarium’s “Turtle Strand Program” and https://peregrinefund.org/