The two animals received veterinary treatment at the Zoomarine Shelter Port, the marine species rehabilitation center of the water park located in Albufeira, and the release will be made 10 nautical miles, equivalent to 18 kilometers, south of the Portimão bar, indicated the Navy.

Antonieta Nunes, a veterinary nurse at Zoomarine, told the Lusa agency that the turtles that will be released are called Vanora and Ukiyu and were found, respectively, at Praia Grande, in Sintra, in the district of Lisbon, and at the Carrapateira stream, in Aljezur, district of Faro, both with health problems that weakened them.

"We will leave from the Portimão Naval point, with the support of the Navy, and we always ask to go at least 10 miles from the coast to escape the fishing gear that is closer to the coast. We have no guarantee that they will come back, but the usual tendency is for them to move away from the coast and we hope they follow this trend", said the official.

After being collected by the Lisbon and Vale do Tejo Stranding Network, on March 3, Vanora arrived at the Shelter Port "very young", with a "very small" size, and "was very weak, it almost seemed that she had already died, such was her bad condition", said Antonieta Nunes.

"She was dehydrated, apathetic, in the blood tests we could see that she had a very severe anemia, the animal was dehydrated, so she had not been eating properly for some time, and in the middle, probably, of the situation in which she was stranded, which was at a time of storms, she must have swallowed a lot of sand", she diagnosed.

The turtle could not eat because she had ingested a large amount of sand and it was necessary to medicate her "to help the sand evolve in the digestive tract" and "come out naturally, because otherwise she would have to go into surgery", she explained.

"But, fortunately, it was not necessary because we managed with the medication to evacuate on her own", she congratulated herself, stressing that she had to receive "nutritional support, iron for anemia, fluids", but then "everything went well" and the animal "can be returned to the sea tomorrow [on Thursday]".

The other turtle, called Ukiyu, was recovered in Aljezur, on November 11, 2023, and entered the Algarve aquatic species recovery center "in very bad condition", with a "congenital deformation in the shell", many wounds and a lung infection, due to excessive buoyancy.

"Excessive buoyancy happens very often due to lung problems, because they use their lungs to walk higher or lower in the water column, but not always, and this was the case of Ukiyu, who had plastic in her digestive tract and that alone was enough to make her uncomfortable and stay on the surface", she explained.

The plastic also ended up coming out without surgery and with the support of medication and, despite a "longer recovery process", it also meets the conditions to be released in this operation, although a late loss of appetite, during the process of lowering the temperature of the tank to match that of the sea, had raised doubts about a pathology that ended up not being confirmed.

The Shelter Port was the first equipment of its kind in the country and, for years, the only one to receive animals, with hundreds of animals having already passed through what has been the Algarve's veterinary hospital for 20 years.

Just like in a hospital, the Shelter Port has an intensive care unit, where animals that may be out of the water remain if they need special care, and outdoor wards with swimming pools instead of beds, where the animals go when they move to recovery.

Read Also: Varona returns to the sea after being found in a "comatose state" in Sintra (Portuguese version)