Beach chair found tangled around neck of world's most endangered sea turtle in Alabama

An abandoned beach chair became tangled around the neck of a sea turtle found dead and washed ashore Saturday near Fort Morgan, Alabama.

A graphic photo depicting the turtle, belly up and caught in the folded chair, published Saturday on the Facebook page of a conservation group called Fort Morgan Share the Beach. Advocates identified the reptile as a Kemp's ridley turtle, the most endangered of all sea turtles.

"How many hundreds of times do we have to ask people to pick their stuff up?" the group said in the post. "It should just be common decency. I think I am going to print this out and carry it with me next time I have to ask."

In a report from Mobile's WKRG-TV, Share the Beach member Debbie Harbin noted that chair was covered in barnacles, indicating it had been in the water for some time. The turtle was found near the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge, the station reported.

Richard Brewer, a volunteer with Share the Beach, told KSLA-TV that he's found refrigerant tanks, nets and ropes abandoned on nearby Dauphin Island. The station published a second photograph of the turtle on Twitter.

"We had great news this morning, we believe that we have the first Kemp's ridley nest ever found on Dauphin Island," Brewer said in the Saturday report, and "to find out that we had a mature female Kemp's that just died because of something that could have been prevented is tragic."

Through both stations, advocates made a simple plea to beachgoers: Leave only footprints.

The Kemp's ridley became endangered largely through human activities, the Fish and Wildlife Service notes, including capture both intentional and incidental in harvesting operations. Strict protection could enable the population to recover, it said in a fact sheet.

WJAX