00:00Anglesey Sea Zoo has been caring for marine animals that have become stranded across North
00:07Wales and in recent years they've taken in four sea turtles, each found thousands of
00:11miles from their natural habitat. The turtles, named Menai, Tali, Toni and Rossi, were all
00:16discovered on different local beaches by members of the public before being brought to the
00:20zoo for rehabilitation. Cold and weak after drifting across the Atlantic, they've been
00:25nursed back to health. Anglesey Sea Zoo has an ongoing project dedicated to rehabilitating
00:31these turtles and returning them to the wild, but for one, the challenge isn't just
00:35environmental, it's now got political. Rossi, a Kemp's wriggly turtle, was found washed up in
00:41North Wales in 2023. Almost all of his species are found in the Gulf of Mexico and as the world's
00:46smallest and most endangered of sea turtles, conservationists are working hard to return
00:51her to her natural habitat whenever possible. Rossi is now fully recovered and is ready to be
00:55rehomed, but ongoing trade disputes and funding cuts in the United States have left turtle
01:00conservation in crisis, meaning there is currently no clear route to get her back home.
01:05The United States Fish and Wildlife Service, normally responsible for returning turtles to
01:10the US, has been a major budget reduction with hundreds of jobs lost. Conservationists fear that
01:16cases like Rossi's will become more common as organizations struggle to find marine rescue
01:20efforts. Despite these challenges, the team at Anglesey Sea Zoo remains hopeful. They're working
01:27with international conservation groups to find a way to get Rossi back to warmer waters where she
01:32can join others of her kind. For now, she remains in North Wales, thousands of miles from home,
01:38but with a team dedicated to ensuring she makes it back.
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