Endangered Sea Turtles Leave Maine For Home

BIDDEFORD (NEWS CENTER) -- 4 endangered sea turtles are swimming their way back home after a long rehabilitation in Maine.

The turtles have been living at the Marine Animal Rehabilitation Center in Biddeford, known as MARC, since January. They were recovering from being cold-stunned, a kind of hypothermia.

Every year, Kemp's Ridley sea turtles migrate to the coast of Cape Cod from Mexico and some of them get stuck in cold water before they can go back. The New England Aquarium in Boston does critical care work on the sea turtles, and sends them to a handful of centers around New England for the rest of the rehabilitation work.

Kemp's Ridley turtles are an endangered species, and so the caretakers at MARC are really proud they've been able to ready these guys for their natural habitat.

Kristen Patchett, the senior animal care technician at MARC, said, "A nesting female can lay hundreds of eggs so these animals (we don't know their sexes at this age), if some of those animals are females, we're contributing to helping the population grow."

One of the turtles, which is named Ursula, left the center early this morning to get a satellite tag so scientists can track where it goes. There's a link to the right to a website where you can check the turtle's progress.