Agoura Hills resident Joe Duley was in for a surprise last week when he set out for one of his regular morning fishing trips along PCH in Malibu.
Duley was casting his line off the coast near Mastro’s restaurant at Topanga Canyon Boulevard and PCH when he felt “slack” — an indication he was about to catch something bigger than usual.
“My line just got a bunch of slack … which usually means there’s a fish on there, and it’s swimming toward you because the line is really slack. So I pulled the line in, and I thought I had a seal or something on it, because it was really heavy, and I couldn’t see what it was until it got to the rocks,” Duley recalled.
“Then I saw it was a turtle,” Duley said. “I’m like, ‘Great I’ve got a turtle… now what do I do?’”
The animal, a green sea turtle, was caught on the line and trapped in a tide pool, but Duley couldn’t reach it to release the hook.
“I tried to climb down to the rocks to try to release him, and I got my leg all cut up and thought, ‘This isn’t going to work,’” Duley recalled.
So he enlisted the help of the California Wildlife Center.
The center, located in Calabasas, took the call after Duley said he had no luck with Fish and Game. They were there “in 10 minutes,” after receiving a texted photo of the animal and, with Duley’s help, climbed down to the turtle, which had lodged itself in a narrow space between three rocks. Once rescued, the turtle was transported to the Aquarium of the Pacific.
According to Jeff Hall, Marine Program Manager at the Wildlife Center (who participated in the rescue), Duley’s catch was a rare one on the coast of Malibu.
“I’ve rescued hundreds … maybe even thousands of animals in my career. From mountain lions and black bears to seals and dolphins, I’ve seen my fair share of different species and had a hand in their rescue,” Hall wrote in an email to The Malibu Times. “Never in my career have I rescued a green sea turtle — that is, until yesterday!”
Hall said that though there is a population of sea turtles in the LA County area, the 28-pound green sea turtle that turned up last Tuesday was a bit of a fish out of water.
“Green sea turtles are normally warm-water-loving animals more comfortable in the oceans around Hawaii, or Central and South America,” Hall wrote. “California does have a healthy population of sea turtles, but we usually see Olive-Ridleys in these waters.”
Assistant Marine Mammal Stranding Coordinator Justin Greenman said that sea turtles are fairly common in the area, with another turtle coming ashore in Marina del Rey in July, and the two will likely be released together later in the month. Greenman, who works for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, was at the Aquarium of the Pacific when the turtle was brought in.
The turtle caught in Malibu had already survived another run-in with a fisherman; it had two more hooks “lodged in its lower intestine,” Greenman said, though it was expected to make a full recovery. This turtle was luckier than others that have been found off the coast.
“For every live animal, we probably get two dead animals,” Greenman shared. It will be released after about two weeks of rehabilitation.
“We’re looking at potentially around [Aug.] 24,” Greenman said. “Hoping that that would give that guy enough time to be treated, and we have that previous turtle July, which is also an animal that had a hook in it.”
Duley said he was thankful that the California Wildlife Center was there to rescue the turtle — and later got some good news of his own.
“They said they’re going to keep him for two weeks and they’re going to tag him with a number and my name,” Duley said. “I have a turtle named after me — it’s so cool.”
Julie Ellerton contributed to this report.
