Cape Town - After 41 days at sea, Bob the turtle has travelled a distance of 2000km and is now offshore from Hermanus.
In an update, the Two Oceans Aquarium’s Talitha Noble shared this week that they were celebrating Bob on his 41st day at sea.
After eight years of rehabilitation at the Two Oceans Aquarium, Bob the green turtle was released on January 27 and took his first plunge into the Indian Ocean in KwaZulu-Natal.
“When we last checked in with Bob, he had started to move in a westerly direction after his speedy journey south in the Agulhas Current.
During this time, Bob stuck to the edge of the continental shelf. At 200km south of Cape Agulhas, we were very curious about what Bob’s next steps would be.
“Over these 41 days, Bob has travelled on average 54km per day - our fit boy is doing an ultra-marathon per day,” Noble said.
In the last seven days, Bob continued to move along the continental edge, staying on the outer edge of the Agulhas Bank and moving in a northerly direction towards the Cape Peninsula.
“Bob is moving in the same direction as the current, which is moving at about 1.5km/h. However, he is sticking to a slower-moving part, possibly to stay within the boundary of the continental shelf. Currently, he is swimming over waters about 200m deep and about 22 degrees.
“The edge of the continental shelf, where the shallower waters allow sunlight to reach marine life, is abundant in nutrients and fish species,” Noble said.
Most recently, Bob is only 85km offshore from Hermanus.
“If Bob decides to continue north ward, he may bump into Turbo and Pan soon. Pan is a special loggerhead turtle who spent three years in our Turtle Rehabilitation Centre before being released off Cape Point in 2022 with a satellite tag.
He has enjoyed the West Coast, spending lots of time there before heading offshore into the Atlantic Ocean. Turbo, released in December 2022, is a green turtle - he’s spent solid time hanging out around the West Coast National Park and the broader west coast waters,” Noble said.
Bob’s journey began when he arrived at the Two Oceans Aquarium in 2014, 70 kgs lighter and “unreleasable”. He had severe injuries, exacerbated by plastic ingestion and brain damage.
With a lot of hard work and love, the Turtle Conservation Centre team made incredible progress and Bob was introduced to his temporary home in the I&J Ocean Exhibit six years ago.
In 2020, Alexandra Panagiotou, Environmental Enrichment Specialist at the Two Oceans Aquarium Foundation, joined the team and sparked hope for Bob’s potential release.
She designed a Bob-specific environmental enrichment programme and over the next two years saw steady progress in his development as he began to express natural behaviours for green turtles. Bob’s regular behavioural assessments and neurological examinations increasingly showed healthy neurological responses resulting in a decision in 2022 to release him.
Cape Times