Aloha All
I don't know if you have noticed, but Turtles like to rub up against objects. They will rub against rocks, wrecks, underwater moorings, etc. At Turtle Canyon, off Waikiki, we have submerged moorings, with a mooring ball, and enough excess line to reach the surface, and tie off the boat. Usually the lines are all underwater, to reduce the chance of entangleing boats, however, some of the snorkel, swim, boat ride boats, have been attaching bottles to the end of the lines, to keep them afloat, and not have to enter the water to moor the boat. You just grab the bottle out of the water with the boat hook, and presto, you have the mooring line. They have been using twine, shock cord, light rope, etc, to attach the bottles. The mooring line is large, 1 inch or better, and no real tangle hazard. However, the light strong lines, attaching the floating bottles, is a hazard to the Turtles.
Yesterday, we could not find the nice floating bottle, so I went in to find the mooring.
What I found was a large female turtle with her right front fin totally trapped, and twisted tight, in the bottle line. She was pretty agitated, and swimming in circles, trying to get free, and just getting tied tighter, and tighter.
She was not too thrilled, when I got my knife between her fin and the line to cut it. But she held still long enough for me to get the job done. When freed, she raced for the surface and motored off.
Perhaps we need to rethink the use of the surface floats tied with strong light lines.
Yes, this is the first time in 10 years, I have seen this problem. But now I see that this might be a continuing problem.
What do you think?
Aloha
Turtleguy9
I don't know if you have noticed, but Turtles like to rub up against objects. They will rub against rocks, wrecks, underwater moorings, etc. At Turtle Canyon, off Waikiki, we have submerged moorings, with a mooring ball, and enough excess line to reach the surface, and tie off the boat. Usually the lines are all underwater, to reduce the chance of entangleing boats, however, some of the snorkel, swim, boat ride boats, have been attaching bottles to the end of the lines, to keep them afloat, and not have to enter the water to moor the boat. You just grab the bottle out of the water with the boat hook, and presto, you have the mooring line. They have been using twine, shock cord, light rope, etc, to attach the bottles. The mooring line is large, 1 inch or better, and no real tangle hazard. However, the light strong lines, attaching the floating bottles, is a hazard to the Turtles.
Yesterday, we could not find the nice floating bottle, so I went in to find the mooring.
What I found was a large female turtle with her right front fin totally trapped, and twisted tight, in the bottle line. She was pretty agitated, and swimming in circles, trying to get free, and just getting tied tighter, and tighter.
She was not too thrilled, when I got my knife between her fin and the line to cut it. But she held still long enough for me to get the job done. When freed, she raced for the surface and motored off.
Perhaps we need to rethink the use of the surface floats tied with strong light lines.
Yes, this is the first time in 10 years, I have seen this problem. But now I see that this might be a continuing problem.
What do you think?
Aloha
Turtleguy9
