JUPITER — Barely a month after rescuing a sea turtle stranded on its back on Jupiter Island, the staff at Blowing Rocks Preserve were at it again last week.
While monitoring the beachfront last Wednesday, Nature Conservancy staff members came across a female loggerhead sea turtle lodged in the preserve’s Anastasia limestone rock.
A crew of four rigged a sling under the turtle, hoisted her and turned her around, according to a news release from The Nature Conservancy, which owns the preserve. Once plopped in the water, the turtle crawled and swam back out to sea, the conservancy said. The turtle weighed an estimated 300 pounds.
“Our team was at the right place at the right time, and fortunately, she had not sustained any significant injuries,” Blowing Rocks Preserve Manager Cristin Krasco said in a statement. “We’re grateful that our work allows us the opportunity to support loggerheads and other imperiled species.”
Krasco’s team ran some assessments of the turtle before helping her back out to the water, the conservancy said.
They measured her shell, looked her over for injuries and disease and scanned her for identification tags (there were none).
The turtle rescued at Blowing Rocks in late May was stranded under somewhat similar circumstances, staff there suspect. They believe that turtle was flipped onto its back after bumping into the preserve’s limestone.
Blowing Rocks is across the Martin County line, but this has been another big year for turtle nesting in northern Palm Beach County.
Through Tuesday evening, Loggerhead Marinelife Center reported 11,898 nests on the 9.5 miles of beachfront it monitors in the Jupiter area, more or less on par with how many nests there were at this point last year. By the end of the season, Loggerhead counted about 21,000 nests, a record total.
Sea turtle nesting season lasts from March through the end of October in South Florida.