Couple finds 100kg sea turtle in their suburban driveway
A conservation rescue team was called in after a disorientated 100kg sea turtle was found roaming a suburban property 400 metres from the beach.
An astounded couple, from Mackay Harbour in North Queensland, spotted the green sea turtle in their driveway on Wednesday morning and called a local conservation group to help relocate the lost creature back to shore.
“My husband was reversing out of the driveway and he caught sight of the turtle in his reversing camera,” Christine Den Elzen told the ABC.
Hearing her husband yelling about a turtle, the woman was expecting to find a small creature she could pick up and walk back to the beach.
She soon saw the displaced sea animal was more than a metre long, so she called the Mackay and District Turtle Group to help out. It took about 90 minutes to guide the turtle back to the water.
The turtle, whose shell alone was 108 centimetres long, likely came ashore to nest and became disoriented during high tide or a storm.
A turtle’s eyesight is not as sharp on land, the group’s president Steve Fisher, who estimated the animal weighed about 100kg, said.
He added turtles could crawl up to 100 metres from the water, but 400 metres was astonishing.
