Sea-turtles, by contrast, are solitary creatures. By the time they hatch out their mothers have long moved on, and they never know their parents or siblings. Having no-one to teach them life-skills (unlike the social orcas) they must survive by instinct. Instinct doesn't always serve them well: young turtles often end up in cold waters around Cape Cod by mistake and, close to death, they have to be rescued then rehabilitated at the New England Aquarium. The best hope for a baby sea-turtle is to land up on a mat of seaweed, on which it can float around living off the food that gets trapped in the weed. But even that's no guarantee as it has many natural predators, not to mention the risk of a careless human running over it in a motor boat.
It doesn't sound much of a life, but sea-turtles have very tiny brains so chances are they don't worry about that unduly. Anyway not all turtles are loners, as this photo reveals.
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