A team from Coast Guard Station Menemsha worked with a veterinarian to free a leatherback turtle entangled in fishing gear south of the Vineyard early Friday morning.

Leatherback turtles are a federally protected endangered species.

Early Friday morning, the Provincetown-based Center for Coastal Studies alerted Coast Guard watchstanders that the turtle was caught in a lobster pot near Noman’s Land, just south of Chilmark, according to a Coast Guard press release.

A rescue crew from Coast Guard Station Menemsha transported a veterinarian from the center to the scene, reaching the distressed animal just before 9 a.m.

“We pulled up alongside the turtle and could see the rope around one flipper and his head,” Chief Petty Officer Gaines Huneycutt, the executive petty officer at Station Menemsha, said in a press release. Officer Huneycutt served as the coxswain during the rescue.

Once the boat was properly positioned, the veterinarian used a specialized hook to reach the turtle and pull it closer to the boat.

Mr. Huneycutt said the veterinarian cut the turtle free from the fishing gear and the group watched the turtle swim away.

Leatherback turtles are the largest, deepest diving, and most wide-ranging of all sea turtles. An adult turtle can grow to between four and eight feet long, and can weigh between 500 and 2,000 pounds. Leatherbacks lack the hard bony shell of other turtle species.

They mainly eat jellyfish, but their diet also includes squid, sea urchins, fish, and floating seaweed. They nest in southern waters and migrate north in the summer and fall to feast on jellyfish. Incidental capture in fishing gear is one of the greatest threats to the species.