Barnacle Bill is going home after more than a year in Guernsey

The GSPCA has made travel arrangements for a Mediterranean sea turtle brought to the English Channel by Storm Ciaran's strong winds in November 2023.

Barnacle Bill will set sail on Condor to Sea Life Brighton, within a fortnight.

She will call the aquarium home for a while until a space on a royal naval boat is secured.

The navy has helped a few turtles return home after they have washed up on UK shores.

GSPCA Manager Steve Byrne says Bill could have returned to the Gran Canaria sooner, but the UK's departure from the EU complicated paperwork.

He says the volunteers at the shelter will miss Bill very much.

"We've had to go down to the beach every day to collect fresh seawater for her, we've had to find pumps and heaters.

"Caring for any animal costs anywhere from ten to thirty pounds a day.

"So to care for a turtle like this, for a year, you are talking thousands of pounds, but this is an endangered species and you can't put a price on the fact that if we were not there, then this animal would have died.

"Then she would not be going back into the wild, to help revive the population.

"It has been wonderful to be a part of her story and to think in maybe in a hundred years she could still be swimming about."

Michael and Michaela Le Page were walking their dog along Chouet on 6 November 2023 when they spotted Barnacle Bill.

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