A dead leatherback turtle was discovered washed up on a popular beach in Cornwall in the aftermath of Storm Ciaran, which brought widescale disruption to the UK.
Volunteers from the Marine Strandings Network (MSN) were called to Perranporth Beach and carried out an assessment on the badly decomposed remains, which measured a whopping one-and-a-half metres in length, but spokesperson Abi Crosby said a post-mortem examination would not be carried out due to the state of decomposition and they ‘could not pinpoint when it died’.
Jason Halford, from The Watering Hole pub at the beach, said he removed the turtle after it was reported by a member of the public.
He commented: “We’ve had smaller species but nothing to that scale in the 27 years I’ve been here.”
Photo credit: Marine Stranding Network and The Watering Hole
