Rhossi's Journey Home

#RhossiReturnsHome

After almost two years of specialist rehabilitation at Anglesey Sea Zoo, Rhossi, one of the world's rarest and most critically endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtles, has finally begun his remarkable 5,000-mile journey home from Wales to the Gulf of Mexico via Texas.

Between 10th and 18th August, supporters can follow every step of Rhossi's extraordinary journey as he travels by helicopter, road, air and road again before being released into the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico near Padre Island.

Follow Rhossi's journey in real time here on the Polarsteps app:

https://www.polarsteps.com/RhossiReturnsHome/28035673-a-new-adventure?referral=true

This is much more than one turtle's story. It represents almost two years of specialist rehabilitation, an extraordinary international conservation effort and the dedication of countless volunteers, wildlife experts and supporters on both sides of the Atlantic.

While retail forecourt business Ascona Group has generously donated the helicopter transfer, there are still significant costs involved in getting Rhossi safely home to the United States.

By supporting this appeal, you'll not only help complete Rhossi's remarkable journey but also support our ongoing rescue, rehabilitation and conservation work and help us build the UK's first dedicated sea turtle rescue and rehabilitation facility.

Every donation will help give future stranded sea turtles the same chance that Rhossi has been given.

Thank you for being part of #RhossiReturnsHome.

Help Rhossi Home. Help Save the Next Turtle.

Our turtle rescue journey began with four remarkable turtles whose stories have helped establish Anglesey Sea Zoo as the UK's leading centre for the rescue, rehabilitation and return of cold-stunned sea turtles.

We are an entirely native aquarium so we house only cold water British species and we had no facility for keeping a full-sized tropical turtle!

However, we succeeded in rescuing Menai and bringing her back to full recovery ready for re-release. Then at the end of November 2021 we rescued Tally, a juvenile Kemps Ridley turtle – the rarest turtle species in the world - when she washed up cold-stunned on a nearby beach here in North Wales. Through our experience and hands-on care and rehabilitation, Tally fully recovered and was ready for re-release back into the wild.

As Tally was a critically endangered Kemps Ridley sea turtle with only around 8000 breeding females remaining in the world, breeding in just one area in the Gulf of Mexico, when she recovered we wanted to release her straight back into the wild in a place where she would thrive and would most benefit the survival of her species.

It took 20 months to finally fly and release Tally in Texas after her rescue, this involved endless paperwork, complicated logistics, daily calls and emails and close collaborations across the Atlantic. In doing so we broke new ground in working directly with Kemps Ridley conservationists saving the remaining breeding population of this critically endangered species in the field in Texas, and introduced new protocols which work to best benefit Kemps Ridleys which cold-strand in the UK in the future.

As a result of our experiences with these two amazing turtles, we are now armed with all the knowledge, experience and global turtle rescue contacts needed to be UK cold-stranded turtle experts and the professional contacts we need abroad for re-releasing them after recovery.

In January 2023 we got another recent addition, little Tonni, a very small but feisty Loggerhead turtle who washed up cold-stranded half a mile from us and received the same intensive care for over a year. After making a full recovery, Tonni was released back into the wild in the mid Atlantic near the Azores by the Royal Navy in September 2024.

In December 2023 we rescued our fourth cold-stunned turtle from Rhosneigr, a local beach on Anglesey. Rhossi, another juvenile Kemp's ridley sea turtle, arrived suffering from severe cold-stunning and spent almost two years receiving specialist rehabilitation behind the scenes at Anglesey Sea Zoo.

On 10th August 2026, thanks to an extraordinary international conservation effort involving partners in the UK and the United States, Rhossi begins his 5,000-mile journey back to the Gulf of Mexico, where he will be released into the wild near Padre Island National Seashore to give him the very best chance of contributing to the recovery of his critically endangered species.

Here at the Anglesey Sea Zoo we have only natural sea water with native exhibits and while community engagement, sustainability and conservation are fundamental to what we do every day, our only income is from visitor footfall. So our marine animal rescue work with turtles and other species is entirely voluntary and we have to carry the cost of this ourselves, or raise it through our own fundraising endeavours.

This is particularly challenging with turtle rescue as often the most critical time we are caring for them is at the most difficult time for us, at the coldest and quietest time of year in respect to staffing capacity and energy costs!

Global warming is causing an increase in the frequency and intensity of Atlantic storms every autumn and winter, and also increasing average sea temperatures year-round which means more tropical turtle species are spending more time closer to our British coasts in the warmer summer season.

Thanks to conservation efforts there are an ever-increasing number of juvenile Kemps Ridley turtles making it into the Atlantic from the Gulf of Mexico. This means that when we get sudden autumn and winter storms stirring up cold currents we are likely to see an increase in the instance of turtle cold strandings of all turtle species here in the UK over the next few years. We want to be ready for them and give them the best chance possible!

There is currently no dedicated turtle rescue facility in the UK and the nature of rescuing turtles means that we can cater from here for a very large area of the UK if we get a dedicated facility built. The facility will contain a purpose-built examination area, at least one purpose-built turtle incubator and one or more large adaptable recovery tanks. This would allow us to have several turtles of different species and at different stages of recovery at the same time, always meeting their exact needs. It will also allow all our turtle rescue work to run more smoothly and reduce the current huge running costs.

So although it will not be cheap to build, it will be far more safe and efficient than our current set-up and will allow us to take more turtles and give them the best possible chance of full recovery and release.

Here at the Anglesey Sea Zoo we believe that sea turtles belong in the wild, and we do not believe in having them on long term display even if it were possible to do so. Therefore our turtle rescue and rehabilitation facility will continue to be behind the scenes and separate from the main aquarium, to provide the specialised and controlled environment which it needs for proper turtle treatment and rehabilitation whilst also allowing public engagement and education about our rescue turtles at different stages of recovery without any disturbance to them. Every turtle that we nurse back to health will be returned to the wild where it belongs.

Currently, we will always accept a turtle that needs care but our resources are limited as we do not have a bespoke facility for this. We are extremely limited in every way without any proper area or facility for turtles and limited by extremely basic equipment and conditions. Going forward we need this to change in order to be a proper facility and to save more turtles by giving them the specialist care that they need.

So please help us to raise funds for this facility, to give every turtle that turns up on a British beach whilst still alive the best possible chance of survival.

Back to Rhossi and his story reminds us what can be achieved when people come together for wildlife. Every donation made through this appeal helps us continue rescuing stranded sea turtles, returning them to the wild where they belong and moving one step closer to building the UK's first dedicated sea turtle rescue and rehabilitation facility.

Thank you for following Rhossi's journey and for supporting the future of sea turtle conservation.

#RhossiReturnsHome

#TeamTurtle