February 06, 2011

Female Returns Badly Injured!

Three nights ago our faithful Leatherback female Esperanza, who has already nested five previous times in Ostional this very season, returned to nest  badly injured.
Two huge, linear wounds on both of her shoulders, as well as scraped away skin and flesh below her two front flippers, scratches in her face, and on the two sides of her carapace hint towards an incident with fisheries, probably long-line fishery. 
We tried to clean the wounds with Vanodine and tried to record the wounds with a nightvision videocamera.


Huge pieces of scraped-away skin and parts of fatty tissue below, and under her right front flipper.
(Photo: Erin Kujda)


Linear wound on the left shoulder
(more severe on the right shoulder with blood-flow when we tried to clean the wounds).
(Photo: Erin Kujda)

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