800-Pound Turtle Rescued off Montauk Sunday
A sea turtle that weighed in at 800 pounds was rescued from a lobster trap about a mile off Montauk on Sunday, according to the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation.
The U.S. Coast Guard called the foundation Sunday afternoon to report the leatherback sea turtle was entangled in the trap, the foundation stated on its Facebook page.
“Our biologists quickly assembled our disentanglement gear and began the drive out east,” the foundation said. “Upon arriving in Montauk, the response team was taken out to the entangled sea turtle with the assistance of the Coast Guard. Our biologists successfully removed the lobster trap from the animal, which quickly dove under the water and swam away freely.”
Coast Guard members chose to name the sea turtle Oriskany, after a U.S. aircraft carrier that was sunk in 2006 to become an artificial reef off Florida.