VIRGINIA BEACH Three young sea turtles of different protected species paddled free into the surf of the Chesapeake Bay yesterday, released after months of rehabilitation by a local group.

Members of the Virginia Aquarium's stranding-response team set free an endangered Kemps ridley, along with a green turtle and a loggerhead at Chicks Beach, near the point where the bay meets the Atlantic Ocean.

"They can choose which way they want to go," said Wendy Walton, a veterinary nurse for the stranding team. She had to half-wrestle the big loggerhead on his way. The Kemps ridley and the green turtle -- little bigger than a serving plate -- needed no prodding.

Because turtle populations are in such rough shape, Walton said, "each of these three animals can possibly make a difference."

The three ended up in turtle rehab for the typical reasons. The Kemps ridley was caught on a fisherman's hook at a pier at Sandbridge in May. The green turtle was found stunned by cold water at Back Bay in Virginia Beach on Christmas Eve. The loggerhead was brought to the Virginia Aquarium after washing up along the New Jersey coast in October.

Few turtles sick enough to wash up survive. In just the past six weeks, 117 turtles have stranded on Virginia shores, all but three of them dead, Walton said. They are struck by boat propellers, caught in nets and tangled in floating trash. Stranding team members help gather material for necropsies to try to determine how each died.

A turtle that survives a stranding often requires months of care in the aquarium's big tanks, along with forced feeding and antibiotics, said longtime volunteer Bill Dieffenbach of Virginia Beach. Four years ago, he said, a veterinarian eye doctor performed cataract surgery to enable a blind loggerhead to regain his sight and return to the wild. "He was doing fine until he got caught in a gill net and killed," Dieffenbach said.

The stranding-response team, a mostly volunteer group operating out of the aquarium, also rescues and recovers whales and seals that wash up on the region's beaches.

Since 2000, the stranding team has rescued, rehabilitated and released more than 100 sea turtles, tagging them and sometimes fitting them with satellite transmitters that track their movement. Walton said only a few of those turtles later turned up dead.

The loggerhead released yesterday, nicknamed Atlantis, is wearing a transmitter. Walton said people can follow its progress via the transmitter on the Web site, www.seaturtle.org.

A crowd of more than 100 people gathered on the beach yesterday to watch the turtles go free. Members of the stranding team drove the turtles to the end of the asphalt, lugged them down to the beach, pointed them at the water and urged them forward. Only the loggerhead seemed unsure. "He always has been difficult," commented Dieffenbach's wife, Barbara, another volunteer.

But after a couple of minutes, the loggerhead submerged and surfaced 50 yards offshore to cheers.

Releasing turtles of three species at once was unusual, Walton said, but the Kemps ridley, green and loggerhead turtles are regular visitors to the Virginia coast. Two other turtle species also visit here, the leatherback and the rarely seen hawksbill.
Contact Bill Geroux at (757) 498-2820 or bgeroux@timesdispatch.com.