Credit: By Jordan Beard [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

As of lunchtime, Hurricane Florence appears to have taken a hard left turn towards the Carolina coastline. While that's not good news for humans in the Category 4 storm's path, it does make life a little better for Isla, a leatherback turtle being tracked by biologists and volunteers from Florida Leatherbacks Inc.

"We are tracking a leatherback sea turtle as Hurricane Florence approaches," the group posted on Twitter on Wednesday.

While the storm's current track places the eye of Florence several hundred miles away from the Virginia (where Isla was meandering about 25 miles off of the coast), Florida Leatherbacks did say that the turt' would be "feeling the effects of the storm" beginning on Thursday.

The group believes that the turtle, which was swimming in relatively shallow waters yesterday (75 feet, approximately), will move offshore as the hurricane approaches. Another silver lining for leatherbacks in general: nesting season is over, which means we probably won't have to read stories about how Flo destroyed thousands of eggs and hatchlings.

Follow @leatherbacksFLA on Twitter to stay up to date.

This article appears in Sep 6-13, 2018.

Read his 2016 intro letter and disclosures from 2022 and 2021. Ray Roa started freelancing for Creative Loafing Tampa in January 2011 and was hired as music editor in August 2016. He became Editor-In-Chief...