Leatherbacks

“Riding the churning ocean’s turning tides and resisting no urge, they move, motiviated neither by longing nor love nor reason, but tuned by a wisdom more ancient–so perhaps more trustworthy–than thought. Through jewel-hued sultry blue lagoons, through waters wild and green and cold, stroke these angels of the deep–ancient, ageless, great grandparents of the world.

Earth’s last warm-blooded reptile, the skin-covered leatherback turtle, whose ancestors saw dinosaurs rule and fall, is itself the closest thing we have to a living dinosaur. Adults weigh 800 to more than 2,000 pounds.”

— Carl Safina

In short bursts, they can swim faster than a great white shark. Faster than an Olympic sprinter on land. They range all over the oceans, and return to breed on Florida beeches. If you were in the mid-Atlantic, 5000 miles from home, how would you find your way back?

They can grow to full size in 20 years. We think they live 50-80 years, but we really don’t know. In the late 20th century, they almost disappeared from the ocean. With new conservation laws, they’re beginning to come back.

Yesterday was International Turtle Day.