An air bubble in Ali’s shell stopped her from submerging for 11 years, until Weymouth Sea Life Adventure Park staff built her a weight belt, reported the Daily Mail on May 19.
Ali, just over 2 feet long and 140 pounds, now enjoys her submarine home in Dorset, England, with the help of the 2.5-pound belt. Green sea turtles are endangered, with an estimated 88,520 nesting females left in the world, according to the Sea Turtle Conservancy. They are found in temperate and tropical waters all over the world.
A boat had hit Ali, causing the debilitating air bubble to form.
Weights have been used to help turtles swim before, but Ali’s mechanism is unique.
“My team and I started thinking about how else we could attach the weights, and came up with the idea of a harness,” Fiona Smith, the park’s curator, told the Daily Mail. “We took the idea to a nearby dive shop and they came back to us with a custom-built dive belt we could slip weights into. It needs a few tweaks, but otherwise it is ideal.”
