I didn’t expect the turtle to live.
Our friends from the Marine Animal Response Society called. The leatherback had been stranded on the mudflats of the Shubenacadie River for at least two, possibly three, days, pushed further inland each time it found itself pounded by the incredible force of the storied Bay of Fundy tidal bore. The pictures they forwarded to us from concerned members of the public showed a turtle, baking in hot sun, its shell—usually a rich inky blue—dried to an almost steely grey.
At this time of year, leatherbacks are typically feeding on jellyfish off the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, up along the south coast of Newfoundland, and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. They are only occasionally found in the Bay of Fundy. And, in almost 25 years of working with them, there is only one other occasion—in August of 2012—when a leatherback was found in the Shubenacadie River. That turtle was barely alive when residents reported it, and it died hours later.
The twisting Shubenacadie River, flooded and drained anew with each tide cycle, a complex and shifting landscape of sand bars and wild current, is not leatherback habitat.
I could feel the clock relentlessly ticking down the possible remaining moments of this animal’s life.
Tuesday night
We knew we could count on our closest collaborators, the Sea Turtle Unit at Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the commercial fishermen who help with sea turtle research in Nova Scotia. They quickly readied themselves. The tide had come in, so this would be a water rescue if we could pull it off. Licia, one of the owners of the Tidal Bore Rafting Resort, suggested we contact the Maitland and District Volunteer Fire Department to ask to use their boat to look for the animal.
When I reached Chief Warren, I learned their boat was not operational. And then less than half an hour later, Brandon, a volunteer firefighter with the Stewiacke Fire Department, called. They had a boat and were ready to meet us. In what became the first of many acts of kindness and community, Chief Warren had contacted Stewiacke of his own accord in hopes of helping.
By the time we reached the Tidal Bore Rafting Resort, its co-owner, Steve, was on board with lending us one of their large boats, which he kindly captained. And, in addition to his enthusiastic co-workers (I’m talking about you, Jeff, Kara, Lisa and Mike), Brandon had brought along his friend Derek from Fundy Tidal Bore Adventures to help navigate the river as the tide drained it.
The Fire Department zodiac and volunteers David, Dan and Kara, ready for action in front of the Tidal Bore Rafting Resort, which provided a launch spot for us that evening
We spent two hours searching for the turtle with no luck. The sun almost down and the water too shallow for us to work, we called off the search, planning to reconvene in the morning.
“I’m sure,” Derek said to me as we headed back to our vehicles, “that by tomorrow the turtle won’t be out toward the mouth of the bay where we were searching tonight. I think it will be pushed in the other direction by the bore.”
My phone lit up just before 10 p.m. Brandon. “Hi Kathleen. Let me know if I can be of assistance at all tomorrow.”
Looking out over the Shubenacadie River in hopes of finding Stewie (l-r): David, Mike, Mike, Lisa, Brandon and Kara
Wednesday morning
“Derek and his boss are sure the turtle will have been pushed inland. We need to start a lot further down and work our way back up to where we were last night,” Brandon said when we chatted early in the morning.
He met Kelly from the DFO Sea Turtle Unit and me at the confluence of the Shubenacadie and Stewiacke Rivers. His fellow firefighter John was with him, full of energy despite having just come off back shift as an EMT. The tide was out—our best possible chance of finding the turtle, stranded again on the mudflats.
“It’s possible we won’t find it,” I said, calming my own nerves. “Or if we do, it is possible it will have died or be close to death.”
There is something to this work. To the number of times—to the countless times—we have dealt with stranded animals. They are usually dead or they die soon after they’re found. In Canada, sea turtles are meant to be in water, not on land.
It is hard on your heart. On my heart. I was prepping for the feelings that come when you realize anew that caring about something doesn’t necessarily keep it alive.
And then John: “I’m really interested to see what that is ahead.”
Brandon increased the speed of the zodiac. I stood up gingerly to get a better view.
“TURTLE!”
Working out logistics (l-r): Brandon, John, Keith, Warren, Kelly, Dave and Stewie
Wednesday afternoon
Here are the names of all of the people who helped get this turtle safely off the mudflat: Brandon, Dave, John, Kara, Keith, Kelly, Lesley, Mackenzie, Scott, Shavonne, Trevor, Warren and me. And Tonya and Andrew were standing by if we needed them.
Here are all of the organizations they represented: DFO Conservation and Protection, DFO Science Sea Turtle Unit, Nova Scotia Lands and Forestry, Stewiacke Fire Department and us, the Canadian Sea Turtle Network. The Marine Animal Response Society was standing by.
Here is what it took to get the turtle safely off the mudflat: a helicopter.
It bears mentioning here that this turtle weighed somewhere between 600 and 1,000 pounds. Its shell alone was almost 1.5 metres long and a metre wide.
While Kelly and I worked to keep the turtle comfortable and to do some basic body assessments and measurements (the turtle was in better shape than we’d expected, though clearly exhausted), John and Brandon began to call people they knew nearby whom they thought might help. John jogged hundreds of metres across mudflats and up the steep grassy coastline to the closest farm to enlist a tractor and permission to try and bring the turtle there. Brandon called over to Keith, another firefighter and also a farmer with experience pulling mired cows out of the mudflats, to ask him to drive out toward the other farm to help. Then he hopped back in the boat with Kelly to go and get sheets of plywood (kindly brought to the wharf by Brookfield Fire and Emergency Services) that we might use to help support the turtle as she was moved. (By this time, we could tell she was female.) I checked in with Lands and Forests to see if we might have a helicopter at the encouragement of Kara, one of the Stewiacke firefighters from the night before.
But for a moment, it was just me and the turtle on the packed red sand.
I crouched down in front of her and gently held her face in my hands. “You’re going to be okay. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to help. It’s going to be okay.”
This time, I thought. This time at least, the stranded turtle might make it.
Volunteer firefighters and turtle rescuers John, Brandon and Keith
Rescue
Moving an animal like a leatherback turtle from the mudflats to land was daunting. We debated waiting until the water level rose and we could float her over. The risk of the force of the tidal bore and the currents and the incredible strength of even a tired leatherback in water made this our Plan B. We worried it might land us back in a situation where we lost her in the water.
This is when Plan A, Dave, Warren and Shavonne from Lands and Forestry joined us. And they arrived in style. As the theme song from MASH played in my head, they landed their helicopter and came over to help us prepare the turtle, which we named Stewie in honour of the Stewiacke Fire Department, for her brief transport from the mudflat to the neighbouring farm.
And up she went, carefully tucked into a cargo net. A creature of the ocean and tropical nesting beaches: airborne.
About three minutes later, Dave gently lowered her back on land.
Seaward
Trevor and Mackenzie, two DFO fisheries officers had, meanwhile, dropped everything they were doing during the run of their workday to drive more than an hour to the farm, hauling an enclosed ATV trailer.
To be clear, an ATV trailer may seem less exciting than a helicopter, but in this story, it is equally important. It was the ATV trailer that took Stewie from the shore of the Shubenacadie River to the shore of the Atlantic Ocean.
In their typical helpful fashion, the fisheries officers joined the Stewie River Crew, skillfully manoeuvring the truck and trailer hundreds of metres along an uneven sometimes-muddy-sometimes-grassy pockmarked laneway and then working to help us lift Stewie carefully into the trailer before beginning their drive to the sea.
Marine Team
Dan, captain of the sea turtle field vessel approached a family member about using their quiet, private boat launch as a release site for Stewie, and they generously agreed. When Trevor and Mackenzie pulled up to the launch, they were met by a group of local community members. Also waiting were Mike and Emily, from the DFO Sea Turtle Unit, supported by Mitchell and Cameron, summer students from the Canadian Sea Turtle Network. In addition to assessing Stewie’s overall condition and collecting other standard data from the turtle, Mike and Emily equipped her with a satellite-linked transmitter.
“This will allow us to follow her movements over time,” Mike explained, “and to understand her behaviour and, ultimately, her fate after all she has been through this week.”
Then Trevor backed the trailer down the launch, Mackenzie opened the door, and Stewie felt the ocean wash over her. She stretched her flippers forward and pulled herself out to sea.
As I watched her take long strokes under water, tentatively at first, then with greater assurance, I listened to the community around me. Grandparents explaining to their little grandchildren that leatherbacks have been on earth since the time of the dinosaurs. People murmuring about how they hoped she’d make it.
Then Stewie surfaced, took another breath, and made her way out of sight.
Networks
When we came up with the name “Canadian Sea Turtle Network,” we chose the word “network” carefully. We knew, even way back in the beginning, that trying to conserve endangered sea turtles was not something you could do alone.
But each time I see the network in action—the incredible safety net of people who care—I am in awe. It is a fact that without the dedication and creativity and skills of the people who showed up and did everything they could to help Stewie, this turtle would have died. And leatherback turtles are not just endangered—they are on the decline in the Atlantic. We can’t stand to lose any of them.
It is important to remember that the people who gathered to help Stewie had never worked as one team before. Most of them had never met each other. The way that they respected one another’s roles and expertise and listened to a variety of ideas as we brainstormed the best way to a happy ending was inspiring. Their generosity of spirit and willingness to focus everything on one goal gives me hope in a world that faces innumerable environmental challenges. This is how things will get better.
So here is to Team Stewie, with love and gratitude.
Stewie’s Marine Team in front of the trailer: Kathleen, Dan, Mike, Emily, Trevor, Mackenzie, Cameron, Mitchell and Kelly
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Great outcome. Thank you everyone involved. Is there a website that the public can follow Stewie’s travels not that she is equipped with a transmitter?
Thanks again
Thanks! We will be posting maps of her tracks in the coming days here on our blog. We appreciate your interest!
Hi Tim! It took a little bit to work out the web tech side of this, but we’ve got a Stewie update for you: https://seaturtle.ca/blog/2021/08/17/tracking-stewie.
We also have a link to a livemap that you can check on at your convenience here: https://seaturtle.ca/stewies-map/
We appreciate your interest!
How can we at home track Stewie?
We will be posting her tracking maps in the coming days here on our blog. Thanks for your interest!
Hi Brittany! You can read more about Stewie’s track here: https://seaturtle.ca/blog/2021/08/17/tracking-stewie.
We also have a link to a livemap that you can check on at your convenience here: https://seaturtle.ca/stewies-map/
Thank you for your interest in Stewie and our work!
This is quite an amazing success story!! A BIG congrats to all of you!!
Thanks, Jody!
Thought you might like to see the latest map, Jody! Thought she’d head up your way, but she’s turned south instead! https://seaturtle.ca/blog/2021/08/17/tracking-stewie.
Congratulations on this rescue and teamwork! Thanks for sharing this wonderful news.
Thank you, Carol!
I think that if you put all of the rides of a circus/exhibition together, Stewie probably endured all of those thrills and spills riding the waters of Shubenacadie and Stewiacke Rivers through the whirlpools and tidal bores and the fast flowing rough waters over the sandbars and rocks back and forth on the quite high tides!
With the waters flowing both upstream and downstream Stewie had to be disoriented trying to find his way back to the Bay of Fundy and then out to the Atlantic Ocean!
Since the inflowing tidal waters are much stronger and faster than the out flowing water of the Shubenacadie and Stewiacke Rivers most people are already confused about which way is downstream and which way is upstream in our tidal rivers of Nova Scotia especially when the tides are incoming…
Cheers to Stewie and his rescue!
Thank you! And yes…I think you are right about the disorientation. It is the most remarkable river–though absolutely confounding for a sea turtle!
Hi George! Here is a link to the latest on Stewie’s progress: https://seaturtle.ca/blog/2021/08/17/tracking-stewie.
Awesome. We need stories like this! Bravo.
Thank you! We are pretty excited about it!
Hi Pamela! Thought you might like to know there is a Stewie update here: https://seaturtle.ca/blog/2021/08/17/tracking-stewie.
Love this story! Great story – and a great job on the write-up, Kathleen! Going to “share” this story with my daughter… who now lives in Australia… and jumps in the water with whale sharks, but whose journey began … with turtles!!!
Oh, how nice! We are big fans of whale sharks here, too!
Hi Miriam! I thought you (and your daughter) might be interested in the updated info on Stewie, which you can find here: https://seaturtle.ca/blog/2021/08/17/tracking-stewie.
Thanks for all your hard work its great too have one of gods creature saved
Thank you!
Hi Donna! We’ve just posted an update on Stewie. If you’re interested, you can find it here: https://seaturtle.ca/blog/2021/08/17/tracking-stewie.
Beautifully written and very moving. Thank you.
Thank you.
Hi Flora! If you’d like to read the latest on Stewie, you’ll find an update here: https://seaturtle.ca/blog/2021/08/17/tracking-stewie.
Awesome people do awesome things ! I can actually hear Mike shout “TURTLE” in my head, even though I am way across the world. Great piece of writing too!
Me too! Lol
Ha! I can still hear Burt saying, “Mr. Turtle is over there!”
Thanks, Ganesh! Wish you had been here with us!
Hi Ganesh! You can see the latest on Stewie’s progress here: https://seaturtle.ca/blog/2021/08/17/tracking-stewie.
What an exciting week for you and all involved! Had I known, I would have come out to the dyke with my binocs to watch the rescue! Can’t wait to see Stewie’s progress. Any estimate of her age?
We wish we knew! But scientists haven’t yet figured out how to age leatherback turtles. It’s one of the persistent mysteries surrounding this species.
Hi Christine! If you’d like, you can check out the latest on Stewie at this link: https://seaturtle.ca/blog/2021/08/17/tracking-stewie.
Wow! Great job!
Thank you!
Hi Ann! If you are interested, you may read more about Stewie and her progress here: https://seaturtle.ca/blog/2021/08/17/tracking-stewie.
Wonderful story.
Congratulations to all. Will be following Stewie’s progress with great interest.
Thank you! We appreciate it!
Hi Carol! Here is a link to the latest on Stewie: https://seaturtle.ca/blog/2021/08/17/tracking-stewie.
Such a well written account of wonderful cooperation. Don’t we all love a happy ending! Good luck to Stewie, and “Well done!” to all involved.
Thank you! We appreciate it!
Hi Christine! If you are interested, you can read the latest on Stewie here: https://seaturtle.ca/blog/2021/08/17/tracking-stewie.
Where can I find the map to watch Stewie’s progress?
Hi Lisa! You can read more about Stewie’s progress here: https://seaturtle.ca/blog/2021/08/17/tracking-stewie.
We also have a link to a livemap that you can check on at your convenience here: https://seaturtle.ca/stewies-map/
Thank you for your interest in Stewie and our work!
Thanks for a fantastic effort to save this Leatherback! It’s a great team of people that worked extremely hard to save her. This is a wonderful story of success in a tough situation. I am so happy to hear about a Leatherback having a great team for help. Way to go!
Thank you!
Thank you! What an amazing story! Keep up the great work Kathleen and the Network!
Thank you, Anh! We appreciate your support and encouragement!
What a wonderful success story, I’m so happy to see it! Keep up the amazing work <3
Thank you!