I like turtles! Alright you're a great...zombie

One of the things I was asked to do in my first hours here with the Cedar Key Dolphin Project (CKDP) was to become a certified emergency response volunteer for local marine life. What this means is that we are the first people called in the event that marine animals are in distress (stranded, injured, deceased, tangled, etc) within the area.

My first experience with this aspect of my job was to assess and remove a dead sea turtle. This was a less than pleasant experience, as the poor thing was wrapped up in fishing line and had been expired for some time. It was still a very "interesting" experience, to say the least. After the CKDP and FWC assessed the victim (got some measurements, etc), Stefanie and I were left to remove and bury the poor thing. This would have been much easier task had tide not gone out, but with some delicate maneuvering and a little bit of luck we got the turtle up onto the dock, into a bag, and into the trunk of my car (fantastic!). We dug a hole in the backyard, put some cardboard down, and laid the beast to rest.

Why may you ask would we want a giant sea turtle buried in our backyard? (A question I also asked myself) Well, the answer to that is that we now have ownership of a very expensive sea turtle shell! Woo hoo. It will be VERY interesting to see what the state of the...uh...package...will be in come the end of August. Hopefully, very clean! Alas, I never thought the day would come that I would desire something like THAT, but I guess I am experiencing a lot of new things down here, why wouldn't a clean sea turtle carcass be one of them - ok, I'm done...this entry is getting a little weird.