She's back, and as cute as ever.
Turtles are an ever more threatened species, threatened by careless fishing, by plastic waste in the sea and by humans in general, this species grows more endangered as time goes on, and the rare sight of one is something to be cherished.
Šibenik's underwater camera has been greeted, once again, by a cute and curious loggerhead sea turtle.
As Morski writes on the 11th of September, 2018, although it's no longer a big surprise to see the loggerhead sea turtle in front of the underwater camera lens in this particular location, every single time she comes into the picture, it's a nice surprise because this highly threatened species is a delight to see up close and personal, living a a normal life in the sea near Sibenik.
As ŠibenikIn reported from the Šibenik meteo team, who placed the live underwater camera in the location close to Šibenik a few years ago, the cute loggerhead turtle has been appearing in front of the camera for the last few days, and this time, she was hanging around in front of the camera and seemed to be carrying out a full inspection of the device.
The loggerhead sea turtle is a rare and endangered species and the only reptiloid inhabiting the Mediterranean and Adriatic sea. It feeds on various different other marine animals, and as an adult, it can reach an impressive weight of 115 kilograms.
It is a little known fact that the Adriatic is one of the two most important areas for wintering in the entire Mediterranean for loggerhead sea turtles. When arriving in the winter, sea turtles reduce their physical activity and withdraw to the bottom where they, as is currently believed, they bury themselves in sand and sludge. During their hibernation, such animals unfortunately tend to end up accidentally on the end of fishing rods or in nets, and due to being abruptly woken in such low sea temperatures, the poor creatues often go into shock and die, even when attempts to save and return them to the sea are carried out by their unwilling captors.
Since sea turtles are cold-blooded creatures who base their entire lives around their dependency on ambient temperatures, they can and do die when temperatures drop. Currently, the extent of this problem is not yet known in Croatia, but given the fact that sea turtles are protected, the hope is that more information on how to help them is discovered.
The loggerhead has long been on the world's list of endangered animals. The only known predators of adult loggerheads are sharks and humans.
