In Reply to: Ours was only about a foot long - probably less posted by Elaine on August 14, 2006 at 23:25:43:

Yours looks like a Hawksbill to me. I saw one at Catalina's Underwater Park about 3 years ago. Ours was about one to one and a half feet long - approx the length of my forearm and hand. Ours looked so sickly...it was staying in the warmer thermocline and we followed it for about 20 minutes. Of course, I was shooting film at the time and had already used all my shots :(

When I researched on Hawksbills, I found they have a nesting site in Hawaii and are found here often ( every couple of years). Scientists think they may travel on the same current that GWS travel between here and Hawaii. However, when they do accidentally get here, they die, as the water is too cold for them, if they stay beyond summer.

Oh, another sad thing I learned: In the early 1900'2 until the 1920's there was a *Thriving* Turtle Soup Industry in Sand Diego. Green Turtles were COMMON here until the soup industry decimated the populations. Rumors have it that There are nesting grounds on San Clemente Island that the Gov't doesn't want us to know about because they would HAVE to give up the island as a testing ground. I asked around and finally got one army man to admit :)