WITNESS - Rescuing a sea turtle named Ed

By Ed Stoddard

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas (Reuters) - We went fly fishing for mackerel but wound up with a sea turtle.

I had come to this sandy island on the southeast coast of Texas to do environment stories, including one on efforts led by a largely volunteer organisation to protect sea turtles.

The group, Sea Turtles Inc., focuses on protecting the nests and hatchlings of the endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle but also rescues other stranded or injured turtles.

Sea Turtle's president, Shane Wilson, shares my passion for salt water fly fishing so we went to the pier on the south side of the island just after dawn to try our luck.

We saw a small Atlantic green turtle in obvious distress.

"This is not good," Wilson said as we watched the animal struggle to get its head above water to breathe. It seemed to be almost stationary, apparently caught on something.

We tried to use my fly rod to hook the fishing line entangling the creature and pull it in, but that didn't work.

Wilson swam the 5 yards (metres) to the animal, grabbed the fishing line it was caught on and hauled it in.