A rare turtle that survived being bashed against rocks when he washed up on a Cornish beach has had his shell patched up using dental paste.

The half-metre-long loggerhead turtle was underweight, malnourished and dehydrated when he was found stranded at Widemouth Bay near Bude eight weeks ago by a woman walking her dog. Since then the turtle has been nursed back to health by staff at the Blue Reef Aquarium, Newquay, where he was nicknamed James Bond after being allocated the number 007 by the marine strandings network.

The staff were unsure of what to do about black lesions on the turtle’s shell, damage that was caused when he was tossed against the rocks. A local pharmacist and a dental surgery came to James Bond’s assistance by donating a protective paste called Orabase to provide an extra layer of protection while the injuries heal. Bond is now doing so well that he is on display at the aquarium and staff hope to release him back into the wild, possibly in the Canary Islands, in the next few months.

The 16kg (36lb) turtle had strayed thousands of miles from his Caribbean home, having followed the Gulf Stream across the Atlantic. After being found tangled in a large mound of seaweed and covered in oil he was nursed back to health in a heated quarantine tank.

Matt Slater, curator of the Blue Reef, said: “It’s extremely fortunate he was rescued because loggerheads simply would not be able to survive for any length of time in British waters. They are prone to hypothermia and are also extremely vulnerable to getting caught in fishing nets and other marine flotsam and jetsam.”

On average one loggerhead turtle a year is recorded in British waters.

Alan Coltart, a North Cornwall beach ranger who helped to rescue him, said: “The turtle was exhausted by the rough seas, stormy weather and cold water environment. We get huge amounts of jellyfish blooms here and it could have been chasing them.”

Helen Randall, practice manager at Gentle Dental in Newquay, said: “The aquarium approached us. They have contacted us in the past for a similar sort of thing, a shell or similar hard covering. The shell is very hard which is similar to teeth.

“He was less nervous than some of the patients at the practice. He was huge, and it was a three-person job.”

Logger

Latin name: Caretta caretta
Shell: heartshaped, red-brown
Average shell length: 93cm
Average weight: 113kg
Eats: Jellyfish, crustaceans and molluscs

Source: turtles.org

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