Lily Rose was a leatherback turtle we satellite tagged in July 2012 as part of the Great Canadian Turtle Race. In February, we stopped hearing from her tag. We didn’t know for sure what had happened to the tag or our turtle. So you can imagine how excited we were to hear from colleagues in French Guiana, that Lily Rose was seen nesting twice this summer! A team from the environmental group KWATA found her. She was not wearing her satellite transmitter any longer, but she looked healthy.
Lily Rose was named in honour of another Lily Rose. Miss Lily Rose the girl was fighting cancer. She was diagnosed on her third birthday—just before we tagged that turtle—with stage four neuroblastoma, a particularly deadly disease. So you can imagine how excited I am to tell you that last week, our wonderful and beloved Miss Lily Rose was miraculously declared cancer free. If you’d like, you can click here to listen to her tell you herself.
Thank you so much for this loving postscript. mjt
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