Moira is a mystery. A loggerhead sea turtle, she’s a creature of the subtropics, so it’s really not clear how she ended up in a bay in Canada. But there she was in February, floating in a kelp bed in Pedder Bay on the southeast end of Vancouver Island. She was in bad shape, cold-stunned in winter waters. It took months of rehab and paperwork, but Moira was flown from Canada to San Diego this week, where she will spend several days at SeaWorld before she is released back into the wild. On Monday, a four-person team from SeaWorld San Diego Rescue hefted the 115-pound loggerhead sea turtle — an endangered species — out of a small private plane at San Diego International Airport before driving her to the amusement park in Mission Bay. Moira’s move south is good news for the veterinarian who helped nurse her back to health in Vancouver. When Dr. Martin Haulena first saw her, she was “a very, very weak turtle.” Moira is transferred onto a truck. (K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune) “Any tropical or subtropical species in British Columbia is rare, to say the least, and usually is the sort of thing that in and of itself was cause for alarm,” Haulena said Monday. Authorities and marine biologists jumped into action as soon as they got the call that a sea turtle was spotted in distress, according to the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Society. Haulena is its executive director and also the director of animal health at the Vancouver Aquarium. Fisheries and Oceans Canada got the rescue moving, led by marine biologist Anna Hall, and Moira was rushed to the Rescue Centre hospital. When she reached the facility, Moira had a body temperature of 47 degrees, which the rescue society said is “far below the normal range for loggerheads,” generally between 68 to 77 degrees. “Her condition was precarious,” the Vancouver group said on its website. Related Articles Environment | If you weren’t selected for the CDC’s Tijuana River sewage survey, here’s another one you can take Environment | Supervisor wants county to flex its legal muscles to fight sewage crisis Environment | One of the largest solar projects in the US opens in Texas, backed by Google Environment | Distressed about climate change, a ‘supermajority’ of young Americans across the political spectrum want bolder action Environment | Overwhelmed by election incivility? Check out a rare comet or the year’s brightest moon this week Haulena said the creature had all the symptoms of a cold-stunned sea turtle — muscles not working, circulation impeded, heart slowed. It can’t forage. It can’t move. “It just kind of floats there in essentially a comatose state,” he said. “They are at the mercy of wherever the current will bring them,” Haulena said. The trick to healing Moira was to raise her body temperature over about two weeks, first by keeping her out of water on foam and slowly warming the room temperature — reptiles need heat from external sources — before moving her into water. When her body temperature reached a good range, her body processes started working again. Food and physical therapy followed. She had lesions on her skin and her shell, and other wounds, but she responded well to treatment. “She’s quite a nice turtle,” Haulena said. “She really enjoyed getting her shell scratched and would swim by so you could brush her shell. She was also a very hungry turtle and ate lots of food.” Her favorite enrichment item during her healing was a large PVC pipe that she liked to stick her head in as she slept. “That is the funniest behavior. That was pretty cute,” Haulena said. Moira is about 20 to 25 years old — not quite fully mature. These turtles live long lives. Moira was ready to get back into warmer waters. That’s where SeaWorld San Diego comes in. “We have a pool ready and waiting,” said Nick DeNezzo, supervisor of the SeaWorld San Diego Rescue team. Pilot Carl Natter helps open a crate with Nikki Clark, right. At far left is airplane owner Benny Benson of the non-profit Turtles Fly Too. (K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune) To get to California, Moira got a lift with Turtles Fly Too, a nonprofit that matches up turtles in need of rescue with volunteer pilots who use their own airplanes to haul this precious cargo. If Moira does well in a shallow pool set at 70 degrees, DeNezzo said, she soon will be moved to a deeper one, to be sure she can forage for food. “And if she passes that swim test, we see that she’s eating, she’s diving, she’s doing everything, then she’ll have the all clear to go,” DeNezzo said. That could take a week or two. And since the turtles don’t regulate their own body temperature, she will have to be put in warm-enough water a few miles off the coast. They are fighting the clock — with autumn well at hand, the warm-enough-water window is closing soon. Once they drop Moira in the water, she likely will head south into even warmer waters off Mexico and beyond.