Turtle Rescue At Sea

When our crew spied a juvenile hawksbill turtle caught in a net, they leapt into action to free it.

Juvenile turtles are particularly vulnerable to entanglement. After hatching, hawksbills spend years drifting in open waters, searching for food and shelter among big floating mats of seaweed. To a young turtle, an abandoned fishing net can look a lot like a raft of seaweed.

Some 600,000 tons of fishing gear is lost or abandoned every year. But there is a way forward, and a big part of the solution starts with better baseline knowledge about the problem, like where these "ghost nets" originate and where they end up.

This turtle was found off the coast of western Sumatra, at the beginning of a four month research expedition to study the geology and biodiversity of Indonesia, from the deep sea to the shallows.

Expedition organized in partnership with the National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia (@brinindonesia1) and the Coordinating Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Investment (CMMAI).