A 400lb sea turtle is back in the ocean after rescuers hauled her out of a swimming pool she had fallen into overnight.
The green female was found floating in the shallow end at Rum Point in Grand Cayman.
She had crawled off the beach in the dark to nest and never made it back to the water.
The Cayman Islands Department of Environment Turtle Team spotted her during beach monitoring and got her out the same day.
DoE researchers Alex Prat and Joe Roche led the rescue, joined by a conservation officer and other members of the Turtle Team.
“Getting a 400lb turtle safely out of a swimming pool is no small feat, but the team removed her, checked and tagged her, and released her back to sea,” the department said in a statement.
She swam off tagged, logged and unharmed. The DoE said the rescue was dramatic – but not a one-off.
“It was a dramatic rescue, but sadly, not an unusual situation during nesting season,” the department said.
Female turtles come ashore at night to nest and navigate back using natural light off the water. But floodlights and lit windows on beachfront properties drown out that signal.
So does clearing the native coastal vegetation that screens the beach from everything behind it.
The DoE said: “Artificial light on the beach, or the removal of natural coastal vegetation, can leave them disoriented and cause them to crawl into developed areas instead of returning to the sea.”
A pool built level with the ground is then a hole the turtle cannot see.
“If they reach a swimming pool with its edge at ground level, they can fall in and become trapped,” the department said.
The Rum Point female was lucky the pool had water in it. The DoE warned that a turtle falling into an empty ground-level pool “could be seriously injured or killed”.
It is asking beachfront owners to keep native vegetation, cut artificial light visible from the beach, and move sun loungers and small boats off the sand overnight.
New pools should be built elevated, the department said, and existing ground-level pools fitted with barriers.
Any pool left empty during nesting season needs turtle exclusion fencing around it.
“This turtle is safely back at sea,” the department said. “Practical beachfront management can help keep more nesting turtles out of danger.”
