Aquarium nursing tropical turtle found ‘cold-stunned’ off Vancouver Island

VANCOUVER — A turtle that is much more comfortable in tropical waters washed up in Port Alberni on central Vancouver Island with what experts say was a dangerously low body temperature.

Vancouver Aquarium veterinarian Martin Haulena says the adult male olive ridley sea turtle appeared “cold-stunned” when it was found Monday with a temperature of 11 degrees Celsius, a drop from the normal 20 degrees.

Sea turtles are cold-blooded and depend on their environment to control body temperatures so when the water gets too cold, the turtles become hypothermic, also know as cold-stunning.

Haulena says the turtle may have come north with what’s known as “the blob,” a warm area of water in the Pacific Ocean, or it may have hitchhiked on a warm current into the B.C. waters.