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Flying sea turtles with Ken Andrews · Lightning Strikes Twice

• 0:00
  Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Lightning Strikes Twice, the Seattle Aquariums podcast, where we get to spend a little extra time with the experts who appear during our Lightning Talks broadcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: My name is Carrie Garand.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: My pronouns are she, her, and I'm the interpretation supervisor as well as a diver at the Seattle Aquarium.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: I am really excited to talk with our guest today, Ken Andrews.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Ken is the vice president of Turtles Fly 2.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Ken is a professional pilot with 26 years of experience and more than a decade advancing the organization's mission to rescue endangered sea turtles and other wildlife.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: He has flown numerous missions and leads international efforts that bring together pilots, scientists, and conservation partners from around the world.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: No small feat.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Welcome, Ken.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Really excited to have you back talking with us today.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: How's it going?
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: It's going awesome.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me back.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: It was so much fun.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: The last time that we got together with the group, I was literally talking last night and sharing that experience and how incredible it was to have people literally from around the world to talk about these important topics.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Happy to be back and glad to talk some more airplanes and sea turtles and wherever the conversation might go.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: And more.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: I have a feeling there could be more on that.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: How long do you have?
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: I know, right?
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Not as long as I always want.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: I always tend to look at the clock as we get going through these, and I'm like, oh no, it's time.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: We got to cut it.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: But we we've got a good chunk of time today.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: We've got a lot to dig into.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Just as a reminder for all of our listeners, last we heard from Ken was during our lightning talks all about sea turtles.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: And if anybody didn't catch that, you can check it out along with all of our previous lightning talks on our Seattle Aquarium YouTube channel.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Now, Ken, there are a lot of really unique, I think, aspects regarding the work that you do with Sea Turtles and Turtles Flight 2.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: I feel like it's not every day that we get to talk to a pilot who is involved in these conservation efforts.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: It it feels it feels pretty special.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: And you you shared a lot in five minutes, I gotta say.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Well done.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: But it is only five minutes.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: It's such a short amount of time.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: And I can only imagine that there are so many more things that you didn't quite get to in that presentation.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: So I wanted to start today and just sort of give you the stage.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Like you said, we'll see where the conversation goes.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: We do have some questions for you, but we can get to those in a minute.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Is there anything more that you wanted to share?
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Like something that you felt like you had to cut out that you really wanted to make sure that folks get a chance to hear about.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: So I guess the the first thing that I think is so great about this mission is that it brings together so many people of different backgrounds and different skills, you know, different areas of whether it be you know conservation or you know, aviation, whatever it might be, it has brought together a very diverse group of people to come together on one topic, one very important topic, at least initially, was saving sea turtles.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: The sea turtle that we focus on the most is the Kemp's Ridley, which is kind of you know, their sea turtles are all endangered, but the the Kemps is the most endangered of the endangered.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: So it's a real honor to be able to have a very small role in helping save, you know, one of our world's most endangered species.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: So it's it's been a great mission.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: And and I think the the part about it that well it just went through my head when you said that a minute ago was you know, I had five minutes to talk, and it kind of feels like our missions are the same way.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Like you know, we we we spend sometimes years prepping for a single mission, and then you fly it in a day and it's over with, right?
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of the same thing, it's that you know, that time, you know, constraint, you know, then so much time goes into it and then it's over with like that.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's been a great mission.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: It's always exciting.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: There's always you know something unexpected, and you know, it's it's just a fun thing to be part of and very rewarding as well.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: I I can only imagine.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: I I just got to talk with uh Dr.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Amy Banka the other day, who was also on the Lightning Talks about Sea Turtles, about the Kemp Ridley.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: And it was it's really cool to learn more about those turtles for me.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: I I have to admit, I I knew of them that they existed, but like not too much detail about them as uh Yeah, I'll admit something.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: When I got started, I didn't know what a Kemp's Ridley was.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: You're like you're like Kemp Sridley, that's an interesting word put together.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: I fly airplanes.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't know how much I would need to learn about sea turtles to to be part of this mission.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Well, and I think that this really does lead to this.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: This is a a question that came through from one of our listeners.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: And I I think you're just kind of queuing yourself up for it perfectly, you know, given that y'all have flown over 5,000 turtles.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: How how did you get started with this?
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: What inspired you to really start working in in this sort of conservation effort with sea turtles as a pilot?
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: I feel like two people, like if you were to like ask, like, you know, these two professions, do they, you know, do they naturally come together?
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: It's not something that I I feel like most of us would be like, yeah, of course, totally.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can see that.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: You know, like these two Lego pieces go together 100%.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: But they clearly do, and they're having a massive impact.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: So yeah, where tell us a little bit about your journey of how you how you get to fly over 5,000 plus sea turtles.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Well, the the way that you mentioned that, the way that you brought that up is actually perfect segue.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: It's incredible because one of the mantras of our organization is we like to, you know, sea turtles are obviously endangered, and you know, we're we're part of the general aviation industry, which is light aircraft, and we like to say that's an endangered species as well.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: So our mantra has kind of been two endangered species coming together to save each other, and and it's it's been a real match made in heaven, so to speak, you know, because the unique capabilities of aircraft work well for this mission, which you know, obviously they're sea turtles and they have a limited amount of time, they should be out of water, and you know, we want to have the sea turtles arrive at the destination as healthy as possible.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: So it's been a really good fit.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: But how it all got started, uh, my wife and I, we were actually we were trying to find ways that you know aviation has given us so much, so it's you know, how can we give back?
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: And and the way that we initially found to give back was to fly, you know, cat and dog rescue missions to relocate animals to non-kill shelters.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: So you'd have these, you know, cats and dogs at kill shelters, and so we would relocate them to other facilities where they could be adopted out.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: So that's how we got started, and we were flying those missions, and I and I can tell you right now, it's really difficult to pull away a plane load of puppies, you know, from you know, from the wife and kids in the back who's been tending with them the whole time.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: And unlike sea turtles, the puppies are allowed to come out of the crates, so there's a lot of interaction happening there.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: So we were doing that, and then one day I just got one of these random, you know, aviation group emails, and it said, you know, organization seeks pilots to help, you know, with sea turtles, flying sea turtles.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: And you know, I'd been involved in aviation for quite a long time at that point, and I had never heard of this organization.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: I said, Well, that is really strange.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: And so I said, I just sent it to my wife and I said, Hey, you maybe you want to take a look into this.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: So, you know, she went and she signed us up, and gosh, I want to say it was about three weeks.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: You know, Leslie from Turtles Fly 2 had reached out and you know, he it was very urgent, like, hey, we have this mission, we need to move a lot of sea turtles, and you know, we would love to have you involved.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Could you know, could you get involved?
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: And you know, it was just so quick.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: And you know, I just remember saying to my my wife, I hope this is legit.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Like, I almost feel like it's not legit.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Like, you know, this is crazy.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: We just did this, and now you know, we're in this this big mission.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: So but I got on the email thread and I saw all the.gov and all the other organizations involved.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: And I said, Okay, this is good.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: But but that's how we got started.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Uh, it was flying, you know, cats and dogs, and I saw that and we signed up, and it was just the right time of year.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Cold stun was happening and they needed some help.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: And then Leslie contacted me, you know, you know, we'd spoke quite a bit leading up to and during the mission, and he had reached out to me after and said, you know, boy, I could really use some help with this organization.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Would you come on board and help us?
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: And so I I said yes, and then here we are.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: It's amazing.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's just sort of like, okay, yeah, sure.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: You know, like you said, it it feels a little bit just like it was it was like meant to be, right?
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: It was and that's exactly right.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Came together and just FYI, if like you ever are running those missions with a bunch of puppies and kittens and you need somebody to entertain them, you just let me know.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: I will do that.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: You're on the list.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: Add me to the list.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: And and and baby sea turtles for or adult sea turtles, any sea turtles would would be just fine.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: It it does kind of it leads me to think about, you know, so there's there's been this identified need to kind of relocate animals of of various species to different places.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: So so why why flying?
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: You know, you know, you even mentioned, you know, like turtles need to be in the water, you know, they can't be out of the water for a long period of time.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: How does some of that come together thinking like how we transport and move animals around?
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Because you're looking at, you know, rescuing them, maybe relocating, you know, them, bringing them back to the original place.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Talk us through a little bit about, yeah, why why flying turtles to different areas?
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: So that's a great, that's a great question, great point to cover.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: So the the cold stone sea turtles, which is the you know, that's the bulk of the turtles that we move, you know, these are turtles that you know have ended up in much colder water than they would naturally be in.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: They've gotten stuck by a landmass, in this case, Cape Cod.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: So they've been you know stuck in cold waters, unable to swim out of them.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: And then, you know, as the fall temperatures turn into winter temperatures and the water temperature, you know, comes down, you know, they you know as reptiles, they obviously can't survive in that.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, they start washing ashore.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: So the the setup for this is that you're dealing with very sick animals at that point.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: You know, there's volunteers that comb the beach day and night looking for these sea turtles that that wash ashore.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: And when they wash ashore, oftentimes they have to wait minutes to get a single heartbeat or single breath from that turtle.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: So these are these are very, very sick animals at that point.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Now they are brought in, and you know, the ones that are viable are brought in and you know gotten back to health, you know, where they can fly.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: But at that point, they still have a long road to recovery ahead of them.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: And and then the other issue is that the number of animals that come in overwhelm local facilities.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: So you've kind of got two issues.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: You've got you know somewhat healthier but still sick animals, also with the issue that the local facilities are overwhelmed.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: So that's where air travel comes in because we can move those animals, you know, halfway across the country or more within the span of a few hours.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: And so that minimizes the stress on the animal versus ground transportation that could take days.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: And in the case of sea turtles, you know, we have a window for healthy sea turtles of no more than 24 hours, you know, water to water.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: So, you know, we would shorten that window for unhealthy sea turtles.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: So that that's really the the main reason that this is critical is you you couldn't put these very sick animals in a van and spend two and a half or three days moving them.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: The outcome is not going to be good.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: They're just not healthy enough to handle it, you know, and even during normal circumstances, that's not good for them.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: And and we've got research studies that show that the outcomes are significantly better for both healthy and unhealthy turtles when we move them by air.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Uh time is really of the essence, it sounds like, to give them the best possible chance of survival.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Um, and I could think too, just the the ease of you know, being able to continue to check on an animal.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: You know, if you're in a big van, that might be really tricky to have somebody who is monitoring heart rates or making sure that the temperature was right.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: And that might be a little bit easier to do in a plane, I can imagine.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: Just the the the ease of care from from point to point sounds like it's setting them up for hopeful success.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: It is, it is.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: It's an interesting dynamic, though, is it is easier to check because we have to set the cabin up in a way where you know it's accessible.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: You know, if we have to get out of the cabin, we need to be able to get out of the cabin.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: So, from that perspective, it's easier.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: But there's an interesting point that I didn't even realize until we had done this, which is that the cabin temperature is extremely dynamic due to solar radiation at altitude.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: So the boxes that are on top that are exposed to direct sunlight, you know, we're at 25,000, 27,000 feet, the amount of heating on those boxes is tremendous.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: So it's interesting, you actually have two issues.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: The boxes on the bottom get too cold, and the boxes on the top get too hot.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: So while they're accessible, there's actually a lot of work.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: It's dynamic during the flight where you need an attendant, at least in our aircraft, you know, adjusting those temperatures throughout the flight.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: So you're you're you're balancing too hot and too cold, depending on where the turtle happens to be.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I was like, so you all are like, you're a pilot, you're a sea turtle conservationist, and you're also a weather person, you know, or climate, climate person.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Or yeah, if you're a pilot, you're definitely a weather person.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: That's for sure.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: You're definitely a weather.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: That that is probably a very large part of your job.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just so many things that go into it.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: It is not just put a put a turtle in a carrier and put it in a plane and we're good, all of the, all of the little steps in between.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: And it that kind of leads me into a question that did come in from one of our listeners was thinking about like where are you bringing these turtles?
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: I think it's probably gonna be a little bit different for every instance, but the the question centered around like, are turtles needing to be returned to the exact same place where they were found?
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: So if you're found finding a cold stunned turtle, how do you decide where it goes next?
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: So there's a couple steps.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Let's start, let's start at the beginning.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: So you have a six sea turtle, like we were just discussing.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: That sea turtle needs to be relocated to a facility for rehabilitation.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Now, those facilities are spread all over the United States.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Some are you know thousands of miles inland from the ocean.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: So it just depends on you know who's got the capability and capacity to take these turtles.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: It can be a six to eight month recovery process for them before they're ready for release.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: So now when we get to the release point, that brings up the question, you know, that's kind of the next step.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, so where is this sea turtle at and where are we going to release at?
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: And we want to release the turtle based on species somewhere within their natural habitat, but that release point is gonna vary depending on the time of year and water temperatures.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: So they're not gonna necessarily be released to exactly where they may have originally came from, but they're gonna be released back into an environment that's appropriate for the species, and then also for the time of year and the water temperatures.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: So there's a quite a bit that actually goes into the release.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Like a lot of people think, oh, you just find a beach and pull up and let them go, but it's not that at all.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: And I've been involved in some releases where, as crazy as it may sound, like you literally had to move the release point like five miles down shore because of you know, whatever, you know, a county line and the water temperature, but they need to be moved.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: So it was done at a different location.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: So there's there's a lot of decision points that go into it, and that's where we get the scientists involved and you know, they look at all the dynamics and they make that call.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thinking of that.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: The best habitat for them to be released into.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: I I think a lot about when we have cold stone turtles in our area here near Seattle, Washington.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: It's it's that's usually not not a good thing.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Like if we're finding them here in our local waters, it is probably not the right temperature for them, it is not the right conditions for them, and they've gotten pretty far off track.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: So we definitely wouldn't want to release them back where we found them, as it really wouldn't be setting them up for success.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: They they are gonna be, they'd they'd be kind of back in that bad bad conditions.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: And so really thinking about where do those animals need to be, and very there could be so much variability up and down coastlines in terms of temperature, water current, seasonality, food resources, availability, all of those things that have to go into that consideration.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: So, once again, I'm just coming back to the idea that this is a really complicated thing that you all do.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: There's there's so much that goes into the decision making around it to really support these amazing animals.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: There are so many people involved at all ends of the mission, whether it's collecting the sea turtles, triaging them, you know, the veterinarians that rehab them and care for them until they're ready to be moved.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: And then, you know, the permitting process and the you know the state and federal agencies that are involved.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: It's you know, then of course the the facilities at the other end.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: I heard a number at one point that facilities typically budget around $1,000 per month per sea turtle that's in rehab.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: So, you know, that really resounded with me.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking to myself, wow, we just dropped off 20 sea turtles to this facility.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, they have budgeted $20,000 a month now for the next six to eight months to care for these sea turtles.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: And that's a you know, it's uh it's a massive investment that everybody is making to save a very important species.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: Thank you for highlighting that.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: And I it's funny because we do need to take a break, but I feel like you're you keep cueing me up for some really good questions, but I'm gonna hold my question, which is actually an audience question, because we get a lot of those audience questions that come in.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: And we're gonna have Ken continue to help answering some of those after this quick wake.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: So we'll be right back in just a moment, everybody.
• 17:50
  Speaker: Want more fast and fascinating ocean science?
• 17:53
  Speaker: Make sure to tune in to Lightning Talks Live on the Seattle Aquarium's YouTube channel.
• 17:59
  Speaker: Five speakers will have five minutes each to dazzle the audience with their knowledge of topics ranging from octopuses to sharks to ocean tech and more.
• 18:09
  Speaker: Find upcoming dates and themes at Seattleaquarium.org slash lightning talks.
• 18:15
  Speaker: And now back to the show.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: As promised, let's take a look at some of those audience questions.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: And a moment ago, Ken Andrews was uh telling us a little bit about really what it takes, also from a financial aspect, to support the work that is being done to help protect these amazing species.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: And Ken, there was a question that came in about where does the funding come from to save these cold stunned turtles?
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: And I think you sort of touched on that a little bit, but would also expand if you can tell us a little bit about how how you know we could possibly help to support turtles fly too or ways to get involved.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: No, we absolutely appreciate that.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: And it's it's interesting kind of how the dynamic works because a lot, you know, we're, I guess I like to kind of think of us a little bit as the Unsung heroes, kind of in the background.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: We we facilitate the missions, we get these things done, but a lot of the focus goes on the you know, the initial recovery of the sea turtle and then the relocation and the rehabilitation of the sea turtle.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: But the transportation can oftentimes kind of get you know mixed in the background and gets lost kind of in the shuffle.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: And so that's always been a challenge for us.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: You know, it's very interesting that we've been called on by federal and state agencies to help with these transportation efforts, yet we receive basically zero funding from any of these agencies.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: So we survive 100% on donations, and that's what funds our organization.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: And so obviously, anybody who is interested in learning more about what we do or is maybe in a position to help, you can go to our website, which is www.turtlesflytoo.org.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: We've got a lot of information on there, and there's also opportunities to donate to help sustain this mission.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: But it is, you know, you know, all of us that help run the organization, you know, we do that at no cost to the organization.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: There is no payroll.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Everything that comes in goes directly to support the mission of relocating endangered species, sea turtles and other species as well that we help move.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: That's wonderful.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: There's just so much great information and stories about like individual animals that you all have helped, that I think it really it helps to create that connection from just like this is you know, just just some random, some random turtle on a beach somewhere, but to really help to bring a face and a story to these animals.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: And so please do check out the the website.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: I'm wondering, given that there I saw all these really wonderful stories about individual turtles that you all have rescued over the years, is there a particular like turtle or even animal, like we could expand it, that that just sort of stuck with you, right?
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Like, like, is there a particular one that one that stood out that you're just like I'm always gonna remember this, this one 100%.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an easy question.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: That's an easy one.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: So that that would be Tally.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: So Tally was a uh is a Kemp's ridley, and Tally washed ashore in Wales, UK, at Talkyre Beach.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Now that's and that's where the name Tally came from.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: You know, Tally is a subtropic sea turtle, she absolutely does not belong in those waters.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Very front.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: She was in the very wrong place, very wrong place.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: And I I my understanding is at the time Tally was only the third Kemp's Ridley to ever wash ashore in the UK.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: So this is not a occurrence that they're used to.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: And it and she was the only one that was alive.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: And an interesting part of the story is that you know, somebody was out walking their dog, saw this sea trotle washed ashore and it looked dead and moved on, and was eating dinner later that night with his wife, and mentioned, Oh, by the way, I was I You know, on my on my dog walk, and I there was a washed up sea turtle that was dead at the beach.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: And his wife shot back immediately.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: How do you know the sea turtle was dead?
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Oh, well, surely it was dead.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: It wasn't moving.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: So she she made a phone call, and I believe it went out to Amesley Sisu, who which is an aquarium kind of in that area, and they sent somebody out and discovered that the sea turtle was actually alive.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: So that started the whole story of Tally, which was about a three-year journey from that point until finally being released back in the Gulf in August of 2023.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: So the that sea turtle um went to Amesley Sisu, which did a fantastic job of rehabilitating Tally.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Probably from our perspective, one of the healthiest sea turtles we've ever seen.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: The challenge was how do you get a Kemp's Ridley from Wales, UK back to Houston for release?
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: That is quite the journey.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that that that's that's not just like a quick flight up the the East Coaster.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: No, yeah, no, not at all.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: And and on top of that, it's an international move as well.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: So now you've got you know multiple governments involved, you've got the UN involved.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is uh this is a massive project.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Just the the paperwork alone took a year of work to get done.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: That was incredible.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Tally was continuing to be rehabilitated and gotten to a very good healthy state back in the UK.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: So to to facilitate this mission, you know, remember we spoke earlier about that clock.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: We've got that 24-hour clock that we're fighting against.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: And if you imagine, you know, being you know in a somewhat remote area of the UK and needing to get from there to say Heathrow, which could be a six to eight hour drive, then you need to check in early, then you need to catch commercial flight, which it's still a long way from Heathrow to Houston.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Then at the other end, you've got to unload, clear customs.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: You know, there's it that 24-hour clock is tight, even when using commercial aviation.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: So we had quite the challenge there.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: The other challenge that we had is aviation is much different in the UK than it is here in the US.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: We have a very free open airport system in the United States where I can take off basically any time of day in virtually any weather and fly to almost any other airport in the country any time of day, any kind of weather essentially, and land.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: It's very open.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: In the UK, it doesn't work that way.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Most of their airports, their their general aviation airports, GA airports, you know, they close at you know seven o'clock, you know, and that's it.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Like that airport is closed.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: And so one of our problems was in order, you know, we when we were doing our mission planning, we said, all right, so the the drive from Wales to Heathrow is gonna really be a problem for us because it it adds you know four to six hours to the journey and it's already tight.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Um, we need to eliminate that.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: So we wanted to fly tally within the UK.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: And the problem is to get that flight out of Heathrow, Tally needed to be in the London area, I think checked in no later than around 6 a.m.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: And so this was a real problem because you know the the the time constraints involved just weren't working for ground transportation, and then the airports, as I mentioned, are all closed.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: There's not a general aviation airport open at 6 a.m.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: that we could use at either end.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: And so the way this worked out was we were working with the home office in the UK.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: They graciously put us in touch with the Royal Air Force, pretty incredible, and we spent the better part of a year working with the Royal Air Force to facilitate this transfer.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: And long story short, they opened up two military bases for us in the middle of the night, and we found out that it takes a complement of 60 staff members at each facility to open, all of whom volunteered to come in without pay in the middle of the night to open these two facilities.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: They provided a blue light, blue light military police escort from Ainsley Sizoo to the RAF base.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Amazing.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's incredible.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: We had a British Airways pilot volunteer the use of his private plane, and he flew Tally personally from one military facility to the other military facility, and then we had another escort then to uh Heathrow.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: So this was an incredible effort.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Hundreds and hundreds of people on the around the globe.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, we were had an operations center going basically 24 hours to facilitate this, right down to the last minute, and we're trying to get Tally checked in at the airline, and there were questions about the suitability of the enclosure that we had for Tally, and so we needed to get experts involved at you know five o'clock in the morning to clear it.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: It was an incredible effort.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: But we got Tally on that flight.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: She flew to Houston.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: When Tally took off from the UK, I took off you know from my home base in Michigan and flew down to meet them in Houston.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: So Tally was flying across the Atlantic and I was flying down south, and then we uh we met in Houston and got Tally uh checked in.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: So it was that that mission just it was a you know year and a half of planning, all came down to you know 24 hours of execution.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: I'll never forget it.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: It was the by far the the longest distance and most complex flight that we've ever flown.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say so.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: I can see why that sticks out as one of your most memorable missions that you've ever been part of.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure Tally's royalty, then, yes.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Well, for sure.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, for sure.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: 100% like honorary royal title for for that sea turtle.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: There's another interesting thing with Tally.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: So Tally is a unique turtle in another way.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Beyond all of that, I've been present for you know hundreds of sea turtle releases, and you know, pretty much they're all the same.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: You know, you walk the sea turtle out, you get to a certain depth, let go, and then they're gone.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: You never see him again.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Tally was different.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Tally swam, man, she swam maybe 20 feet out, stopped, looked back.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I've never seen that before, and then disappeared and swam away.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: So Tally's the the only sea turtle I've ever seen in a release that's actually looked back.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Well, that feels really special.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: It was like that would, I mean, that would really like that that that's hard to ignore is like a moment of connection with with a with an animal.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: Maybe, maybe somehow she knew.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Maybe she knew all the things that helps to get her back to her her regular waters.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Well, oh my godness.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you to you and all the people that helped with that.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: It it really just goes to show just how much work goes in and how much care and passion alongside of all of that hard work that fuels being able to help to save this endanger, this endangered species being the Kemp Spread Lee, knowing that there are other animals as well.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: And and that does lead me to, I think, what might need to be our final question today is I'm I'm checking our time, but you all have have worked with you said, you know, like cats and dogs, sea turtles, but it's not just sea turtles.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Sometimes there's some other curious critters that might find their way onto an airplane that you have helped to fly to different areas.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Can you give us a quick rundown of some of the other very cool critters that you've had an opportunity to work with and support?
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, sure, absolutely.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: And that that's that's a great point.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: We've we've yeah, we started with sea turtles, but yeah, as our experience in transporting animals you know became more known, we we started getting requests like, well, can you help us with this?
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Or you know, and and we've had some very interesting you know, transports and requests.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: So we've moved obviously a lot of sea turtles, 5,000 plus and counting, but we've also moved sea otters, we've moved pelicans, we've moved manatees.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, imagine you know, moving a manatee is that's not an easy task.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: That's a lot of an animal.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, right.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot there.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: There's a lot there.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: So, you know, just coyotes, just all kinds of different animals that you know we have been asked.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Uh, tortoises is another one that's come up.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: So just a lot of different animals.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Now, probably one of my most favorite, and I actually have to say, I mean, obviously, I'm very partial to sea turtles, so don't take this the wrong way.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: We won't tell the turtles, we won't tell the turtles.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Nope, nope, our lips are sealed.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Don't tell the turtles, but we had the the pleasure of moving some penguins recently, and I have to tell you, those penguins were very I didn't know what to expect.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: I've never been one-on-one with a penguin before.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: What's a penguin like?
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: I I'm not sure.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: I can tell you that when we put sea turtles in the airplane, they're absolutely looking at you.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: You can tell that there's some thought process going on there, but you know, sea turtles, turtles in general are pretty chill.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: You know, they're like, All right, let's just get this over with.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: You're gonna move me, I'm gonna sit here, let's get to the other end and get this over with.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: They're just very direct.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: I can see that now.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Penguins, on the other hand, are completely different.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Penguins are like exactly what you'd expect, like from the movies.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: They're like, All right, let's party.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Like, you know, there's people here, I want to interact with you.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: And so the entire flight, they're like trying to interact with the people who are there, and they're just super interested in interacting.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: So, you know, that that was a that was a big difference, and it really stuck with me.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: But yeah, moving moving some uh some penguins was a pretty cool flight.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm imagining like in my in my mind when you talk about that, I just think about like your standard flight that you might take from one location to the next and like little penguins sitting in seats, you know, all like like the really chatty person next to you on a flight that wants to just keep interacting, and you're sort of like, I'm cool, I got my headphones on, I'm doing my thing.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: And they're like, hey, and they want to know all about you.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: So we'll we'll leave everybody today with that image in their brain of penguins on a flight.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Penguins fly two.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: That's our next one.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: That's our next one.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Penguins fly two.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: I like it.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Well, that is it for this episode of Lightning Strikes Twice.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Ken, this has been an absolute pleasure.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being here.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: If folks want to learn more, they they just need they need more information about all of the wonderful work that you're doing.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Where might you direct them to find you?
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: So so check out our website, www.turtlesflytoo.org.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: And we've got a lot of great information on there.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: There's a contact us form so that if you've got something specific uh you'd like to ask us or connect with us, you can use that.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: You can also sign up for our newsletter.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I would absolutely encourage you to check that out.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: And we also do education programs for schools.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: So if you've got you know school-aged child or you're part of the education system, we have that available free of charge to your school.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: So reach out to us on that website and we're more than happy to help spread the message.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Sounds wonderful.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: You all got the information.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Please do check that out.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Ken, again, for all of your time and joining us today and everything that you all do.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: And thank you to the listener for joining us today.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: Please keep an eye out for our next regular lightning talks and remember that you can watch past episodes on the Aquarium's YouTube channel.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Stay curious, everyone.