{"id":13175,"date":"2025-07-22T10:41:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T10:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/13175\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T10:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T10:41:10","slug":"leatherback-sea-turtle-sighted-in-b-c-waters-is-extremely-rare-expert-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/13175\/","title":{"rendered":"Leatherback sea turtle sighted in B.C. waters is \u2018extremely rare\u2019 expert says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emergency room nurse Victoria Bradshaw was just getting ready to fish off the coast of Haida Gwaii<\/a> last Monday when she saw a large head pop up out of the water.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first I thought it was a sea lion,\u201d she told Global News.<\/p>\n

Turns out, it was a one of the largest sea turtles in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grabbed my phone right away because this ginormous animal was just kind of cruising by us,\u201d Bradshaw said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe very quickly turned off the motors because again, that\u2019s super important for all marine wildlife, but we just felt so grateful that he came up pretty much within 20, 30 feet of the back of the boat, which is why we were so quick with that and I was able to capture that video.\u201d<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

She said the turtle cruised along the surface for about 30 seconds before disappearing.<\/p>\n

What Bradshaw and others on that boat had seen was a leatherback sea turtle, which is very rare to see in B.C. waters \u2013 there have only been 149 sightings recorded off B.C.\u2019s coast since 1931.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"For<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGet breaking National news<\/p>\n

For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was absolutely wonderful, not just to know that there was a sighting and what that could do for awareness, engagement, people caring,\u201d Jackie Hildering, education and communications director with the Marine Education and Research Society (MERS), said.<\/p>\n

The leatherback turtle travels from Indonesia to eat jellyfish off the B.C. coast and is the only sea turtle that belongs in the province\u2019s waters.<\/p>\n

Hildering said they are considered an endangered species in Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are astoundingly adapted as well to slurp in jellies,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s worth them coming all the way from Indonesia to these rich waters to feed. They have all these cusps down their throat, but it\u2019s also, I mean, they need to feed that way, feed really efficiently by slurping down jellyfish, but they can\u2019t discern the jellys from balloons and floating plastics. So they\u2019re a powerful ambassador as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2:11
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tB.C. divers in awe after sixgill shark interaction\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tTrending Now\n\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tMontreal dad facing murder charge after 9-year-old daughter found dead in New York\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tMalcolm-Jamal Warner, \u2018Cosby Show\u2019 star, dead at 54\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Hildering said that is why it is so important not to dispose of plastic and garbage into the oceans.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we want people to know more than anything is they\u2019re out there, you know?\u201d she added.\u00a0\u201cLeatherbacks belong in our waters on this vast coastline. Endangered leatherback turtles belong. They are remarkable. They come here because it\u2019s worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bradshaw said she never would have expected to see a leatherback turtle off the coast of Haida Gwaii. The last sighting of one was in 2008.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never expect to see that in our waters,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know why, you know, whales and different things, which are still absolutely magnificent to me even now, but to see something so large, I just didn\u2019t even realize that they got that big in all fairness.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I just felt very lucky that he or she decided to actually kind of surface in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emergency room nurse Victoria Bradshaw was just getting ready to fish off the coast of Haida Gwaii last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,2065,75,14913,14912,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-13175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-haida-gwaii","13":"tag-leatherback-turtle","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}