{"id":669009,"date":"2026-10-29T16:30:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T16:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/669009\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T16:30:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T16:30:18","slug":"loggerhead-turtle-molly-returns-to-the-wild-after-20-years-of-rehab-in-kerry-aquarium-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/669009\/","title":{"rendered":"Loggerhead turtle Molly returns to the wild after 20 years of rehab in Kerry aquarium \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

After more than 20 years in a Kerry<\/a> aquarium and more than six months in a specialist sea turtle rehabilitation centre in Portugal, Molly the turtle made her way back to the wild.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday afternoon, the loggerhead was released back into warmer Atlantic waters with a satellite tracker, off the coast of Portimao in Portugal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Molly first came to Dingle<\/a> Oceanworld Aquarium in 2004 after washing up on the Maharees in Castlegregory, Co Kerry, with severely injured flippers.<\/p>\n

In April, she was flown, in a specially made box and covered in Vaseline to avoid drying out, to Portugal to enter Zoomarine, a specialist sea turtle rehabilitation centre.<\/p>\n

\"MollyMolly the loggerhead turtle ahead of her release in Portugal this week. Photograph: Kevin Flannery\/Oceanworld Aquarium <\/p>\n

Oceanworld founder Dr Kevin Flannery said Molly was assessed and underwent medical tests and \u201cserious\u201d examinations at Zoomarine, gaining 10kg of weight.<\/p>\n

The public will soon be granted access to satellite tracking data to follow Molly\u2019s position. Flannery is eager to see if she returns to the Gulf of Mexico, where he believes she is from. DNA samples from Molly matched those of Gulf turtles.<\/p>\n

Molly was \u201clively\u201d the closer she got to the sea during the release, assisted by the Portuguese Navy. \u201cShe must have smelled the salt water,\u201d Flannery said.<\/p>\n

\"MollyMolly the loggerhead turtle being released into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Portimao in Portugal on Wednesday. Photograph: Kevin Flannery <\/p>\n

Flannery previously told The Irish Times he was not sure what happened to Molly when she was found in Maharees but suggested the injuries to her flippers could have resulted from a shark attack.<\/p>\n

He reckoned Molly got caught up in a storm in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean and was carried northward up into the North Atlantic, too weak to fight a transatlantic current carrying her across the sea towards Europe until she ended up in Kerry.<\/p>\n

He is hopeful she will start breeding, adding that nesting sites are being \u201cwiped out\u201d. He previously confirmed that X-rays show she has eggs.<\/p>\n

Loggerhead turtles can live for more than 80 years and reach sexual maturity after the age of 25. Molly is thought to be in her 30s.<\/p>\n

Flannery is \u201cdelighted\u201d Molly is being released back into the wild but said he is \u201csorry to see her go\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said it was \u201cgreat\u201d to see her returning to the wild. At first, he said, she was \u201cquite small\u201d and wasn\u2019t great at swimming, but after some feeding and rehabilitation, she began to \u201cthrive\u201d in the tank.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never thought she\u2019d survive . . . with two front flippers virtually gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

He described her as a \u201cpowerful\u201d swimmer now.<\/p>\n

He said at Oceanworld, they learned \u201cso much\u201d from Molly, which will help them treat other turtles in the future. <\/p>\n

While he feels both happiness and sadness, he said it is \u201cimportant for animals like Molly to get back to the wild\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After more than 20 years in a Kerry aquarium and more than six months in a specialist sea…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,7727,2888,82],"class_list":["post-669009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kerry","tag-portugal","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}