“Pull! Pull!” shouts Scott Dexter, chanting the cadence for eight men gripping a rope. “Pull!”
With each pull, a 172-pound male loggerhead sea turtle is hoisted higher into the air. It takes several hoists to lift the turtle about 35 feet above the Gulf of Mexico, where Dexter and others are able to lift the netted animal over the railings of the Navarre Beach Fishing Pier.
The turtle, later named Bowser by medical staff, had gotten hooked by a fisherman near its front left flipper just after 6 p.m. Sunday, and Dexter and other volunteers from the Navarre Beach Sea Turtle Conservation Center sprang into action.
Scott Dexter and his wife Cheri Dexter were already on the pier as part of a rotation of volunteers that staff the pier during the morning and evening hours, when sea turtles are most active. Multiple species of sea turtles frequent the waters around the pier. Some get hooked in the mouth or digestive tract after eating a piece of fish bait, and some are “foul-hooked” or snagged on fish hooks as they swim past. Bowser was foul-hooked in his left front flipper.
The Dexters worked with the angler who inadvertently hooked the turtle to keep the line tight and then guide the turtle into a round turtle net, five feet in diameter. From there, the volunteers recruited fishermen and nearby observers to pull the turtle up over the railing using a specialized hoist that Scott Dexter designed and had built for turtle rescues.
