Leatherback turtle, not overturned boat, found washed up in Cape Breton

A creature that co-existed with the dinosaurs has washed up dead nearshore inIslandview, Cape Breton, in Nova Scotia.

RonMacLeanspotted the rare, endangered leatherback turtle along theBras d'OrLake. The 360-kilogram carcass has been taken to the Atlantic Veterinary College in Charlottetown, P.E.I. for analysis.

"They'll check and see what they think happened, and we'll wait and see. [Turtles are]supposed to be in the Caribbean about now, see, laying eggs, not ... they don't ski."

The Department of Fisheries and Oceanstold MacLean that although there havebeen some anecdotal reports of sightings, this is the first recorded sighting of a leatherback turtle in the Bras d'Or.

"On Thursday, I was out walking on the shore in front of my place and it looked like there was a small overturned boat on the shore, in the ice. And I went to look and it was a leatherback turtle,"he toldCBC'sInformation Morning Cape Breton.

"When I touched it it was floating a bit, so it wasn't moving, so I knew it was dead, but it was in good condition. It didn't look like it was there that long, but that would be because, with the ice and the cold and such."

MacLean tried without success to reach DFO for a few days, finally sending an email on Sunday to the Canadian Sea Turtle Network.

That stirred some interest.

"I got a call from pretty well everybody on Monday morning," said MacLean.

When DFO officials saw MacLean's pictures of the turtle, "they wanted it," he said.

By Tuesday, the turtle was being removed from the ice with the help of some sturdy wooden ramps and heavy machinery.

"We got it under the turtle and we pulled it out onto the ice," MacLean said, "and then we dragged it over where we could get it up close to the shore and I pulled it onto a pallet, and with the tractor, I put some forks on it and we lifted it up and brought it up."

MacLean said the carcass measures about two metres from tip to tail and the shell, from side to side, is about a metre wide.

The leatherback turtle is listed as an endangered species in Canada.

One of the world's largest reptiles, leatherback turtles can reach more than two metres in length and weigh more than 900 kilograms. They're known to swim up to 12,000 kilometres a year and dive to depths of up to 1.2 kilometres, according to DFO.

The turtles usually only ever comeashore to nest on warmtropical and subtropical beaches so it's a bit of a mystery as towhy the turtle ended up so far northin winter and so closeto land in Cape Breton's inland sea.

"The ice has been in quite a while and it wasn't here before, so I don't know if it washed up or it had gotten that far," said MacLean.

"But you could tell on the shell it was cracked in the centre so the weight of the ice was on it when the water level come down."