A Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle which has been nursed back to health in Anglesey Sea Zoo is stuck in limbo after conservation budgets have been slashed across the US. Rhossi, who was found in 2023, was due to be rehomed to the wild in the Gulf of Mexico, but now her future is uncertain.
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00:00Anglesey Sea Zoo has been caring for marine animals that have become stranded across North
00:07Wales and in recent years they've taken in four sea turtles, each found thousands of
00:11miles from their natural habitat. The turtles, named Menai, Tali, Toni and Rossi, were all
00:16discovered on different local beaches by members of the public before being brought to the
00:20zoo for rehabilitation. Cold and weak after drifting across the Atlantic, they've been
00:25nursed back to health. Anglesey Sea Zoo has an ongoing project dedicated to rehabilitating
00:31these turtles and returning them to the wild, but for one, the challenge isn't just
00:35environmental, it's now got political. Rossi, a Kemp's wriggly turtle, was found washed up in
00:41North Wales in 2023. Almost all of his species are found in the Gulf of Mexico and as the world's
00:46smallest and most endangered of sea turtles, conservationists are working hard to return
00:51her to her natural habitat whenever possible. Rossi is now fully recovered and is ready to be
00:55rehomed, but ongoing trade disputes and funding cuts in the United States have left turtle
01:00conservation in crisis, meaning there is currently no clear route to get her back home.
01:05The United States Fish and Wildlife Service, normally responsible for returning turtles to
01:10the US, has been a major budget reduction with hundreds of jobs lost. Conservationists fear that
01:16cases like Rossi's will become more common as organizations struggle to find marine rescue
01:20efforts. Despite these challenges, the team at Anglesey Sea Zoo remains hopeful. They're working
01:27with international conservation groups to find a way to get Rossi back to warmer waters where she
01:32can join others of her kind. For now, she remains in North Wales, thousands of miles from home,
01:38but with a team dedicated to ensuring she makes it back.