TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. — “Buckley” could easily be described as a miracle rescue.
The green sea turtle was found in Dixie County in the middle of a rural dirt road.
“Buckley would have died on that dirt road,” Paluska asked.
“Buckley was close to death?” ABC Action News reporter Michael Paluska asked Dr. Debborah Luke, Senior Vice President of Conservation with the Florida Aquarium.
Yes, he was close to death,” Dr. Luke said. “He was found. Thank goodness for the people that found him and brought him into our care, and now he's doing well.”
ABC Action News reporter Michael Paluska was thefirst to report on Buckley’s recovery at the Florida Aquarium Rehab facility in Apollo Beach.
After months of rehabilitation at The Florida Aquarium, it was the turtle’s time to return back into the water.
There was no shortage of hugs and cheers.
“There are a lot of tears on days like this, but they're happy tears. Buckley is going home today,” Ashley Riese, Director of the Sea Turtle Conservation Program at the Florida Aquarium said.
He or she won't get lost lost again, because there's a satellite tracker, that satellite transmitter is going to give us a lot of unique information to Buckley, which is going to be really important for us to understand how Buckley is feeding out there.”
The team at Florida Aquarium called Buckley both he and she. That is because the turtle is considered a sub adult— and they are not sure what gender Buckley is until the turtle hits maturity around the age of 20-years-old.
"I'm not a drag on the system."
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