Featured Image Credit: NBC News
By Sarah Sharkey
A sea turtle was recently rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard after being entangled in rope. The rope was not just ordinary rope though, it had 53 million dollars’ worth of cocaine attached to it.
The ship, Thetis, was on a 68-day deployment when they found this poor sea turtle trying to escape from the tangle of cocaine it had found itself in. This boat is actually part of an international operation targeting drug routes along the Central American coast.
The crew cut away all of the cocaine, 26 bales were removed from the sea turtle.
This equated to 1,800 pounds of drugs attached to a sea turtle! After they returned to shore, the drugs were returned to the authorities. The turtle was set free with some “significant chaffing” around its neck and flippers, but overall the turtle seemed unharmed by its dramatic ordeal with drugs. He swam away happily from the boat and back to his (hopefully rope and drug-free) life in the ocean.
No one has been arrested in connection with these drugs yet, but it is likely they left the scene in a hurry according to Commander Jose Diaz. Incidents like this show that our oceans are facing an abundant amount of pollution that now includes random drugs strew across the seas on entangling ropes.
Learn more from our source here.