It is worth mentioning a case that solved many enigmas on the ethology of sea turtles and their erratic-migratory ability. It was August 19, 1986 when, off the coast of Salento, fishermen from Santa Maria di Leuca picked up a young Caretta caretta that had taken the hook of their longline. It weighed 9 kilos and was 43 centimeters long. They promptly informed the director of the civic museum of Salento Roberto Basso because it had an unusual steel identification tag, not an Italian one, but rather with the writing: Vir-Kej-Miami-Florida 33149. Initially, it was thought that it was the result of marking by an American researcher operating in the Mediterranean, then, to banish any possible doubt from his mind, Professor Roberto Argano decided to write to the United States, to the mysterious address in Miami. When the reply arrived, the content fully highlighted the sensational nature of the discovery. Researcher Barbara Schroeder responded: “The turtle is ours. It was born in 1981 on the Atlantic coast of Florida. We kept it in our institute for a year then, on June 2, 1982, we released it off the lagoons of Padre Island (Southern Texas). It weighed 546 grams and was 14 centimeters long. The enthusiasm of all Italian and American researchers is very high. It is the first time that certain proof has emerged, that a Caretta caretta has traveled over 10,000 kilometers of sea”. It was supposed that they were erratic and that they performed seasonal migrations, other turtles tagged by Roberto Basso and the ARCA volunteers in Otranto and found in Greece, Tunisia and Spain. In honor of the American researcher, she was renamed Barbara and was able to return to the sea. And if she was lucky, she will have been able to return to reproduce on that beach where she was born in 1981. Let's not forget the proven longevity of this species and we would all like to hope that she is still alive, that she continues to swim freely across oceans and seas, without ever forgetting that our small but active association has also been able to make a decisive contribution in this case.

If today the sea turtles in the Mediterranean and in particular the Carretta caretta species are clearly recovering, both in terms of population density and the number of confirmed and growing reproductive sites, it is certainly also due to the work carried out by ARCA and its active volunteers. In the eighties we were the first to invest a lot of energy in favor of education and awareness in schools. We were the first to denounce the serious damage caused by plastic waste dispersed in the environment and in particular in the sea. We performed hundreds of autopsies and examinations of the stomach contents, on sea turtles and cetaceans that revealed the clear presence, in their digestive system, of foreign bodies given by plastic bags and other objects.

Fundamental was the laborious and costly activity aimed at marking the greatest number of specimens possible, as well as recovering, treating and releasing into nature the ever-increasing number of injured or needy specimens that arrived at our recovery centres.

Also with regard to cetaceans, the synergic collaboration with the cetacean center of Milan, located at the time at the Civic Museum of Natural History, was fundamental; the authoritative experience of Giuseppe Notarbartolo Di Sciara was decisive in terms of teaching and the right stimuli to refine and strengthen our research activities. Also with regard to cetaceans, from 1982 to 1985, there were hundreds of interventions on beachings of living or already deceased specimens. Once again, the example of many young volunteers from Salento constituted an example of sensitivity and resourcefulness for many other associations and centers that were gradually established throughout Italy and the Mediterranean.