Parsons Pond locals rescue massive sea turtle

A group of people in Parsons Pond on the Northern Peninsula sprang into action Monday to help a stranded leatherback turtle that washed up on the shoreline.

• Leatherback turtle spotted near Isle aux Morts

"It's unbelievable. I never thought I'd be rescuing a turtle in Parsons Pond," Nevin Blanchard told CBC Radio.

The creature, he said, was more than six feet long, and likely weighed 500 or 600 pounds.

Leatherbacksare the largest living sea turtles on earth.

"It was three-feet wide, and it was high and dry when we found it," he said.

Blanchard said the stranded turtle struggled to move itself across the slippery rocks.

"When we found it first, there was a lot of blood on the rocks I think it was where he was trying to get out."

He, along with two men and Blanchard's seven-year-old son, worked to clear a path for the turtle to make it's way back into the water.

The men, he said, doused the turtlein water along the way.

"Every time we'd throw water on him he'd seem like he was wanting to move, so we put our feet down for him to get traction, walked him about 75 feet to the ocean and that was the end of it," Blanchard said.

A neighbour told Blanchard that a similar sea turtle was seen in the area about 30 years ago.

An official from the Department of Fisheries and Oceansarrived in Parsons Pond to monitor the turtle on Monday, he said.

Blanchard said there was no sign of the reptile on Tuesday.