Rare turtles turn up in Netherlands

In two recent incidents, rare varieties of turtles hav  e shown up in the Netherlands, far from their normal habitats.

Two rare loggerhead turtles washed up on the Dutch coast on Saturday, one near Vlissingen and the second not far from The Hague. The Vliissingen turtle’s shell (above) was studded with mussels and it is in a severely weakened condition. A spokesperson for a sea turtle rescue grop explained that “Normally they take the mussels off themselves. “The mussels make them increasingly heavy and then it becomes even harder to find food so they weaken even more.” Both are being cared for at a Rotterdam zoo.

A couple of months ago, an extremely rare and endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle was caught by fishermen off the coast of Walcheren in Zeeland. And earlier this month, a second Kemp’s Ridley turtle washed up on a beach in Zoutelande, also in Zeeland. Those turtles are believed to have been carried away from their natural habitat in the Gulf of Mexico on the Gulf Stream and may have become disoriented by the lower sea temperatures.