Leatherback turtles in St. Croix

Now, before we delve into Dog and Cat related topics I thought I would share what proved to be a singular experience for me. I traveled to St. Croix with Dr. Mettee, a veterinarian who works with exotics. She was contacted to evaluate the condition of a nesting Leatherback turtle that had possibly been hit by a boat (specially, the prop). This seemed to be the case even though the wound had healed. The complication was that the original injury had cut through her shell and apparently partially severed one of her oviducts. Now that she was coming ashore to nest, her eggs were not exiting her body due to the scar tissue and were being deposited into a cavity. The risk of course was one of infection and eventual necrotic tissue. The first two times she came up the wonderful fish and game workers on the island were able to push most of the eggs out of the pocket and back into the oviduct where they passed into the nest.

Since leatherbacks typically come up every 9 to ten days they expected her back shortly (she had already been up twice). We had a very short window for her third trip. unfortunately she never returned and in all probability died of an infection, impaction or fell victim to the numerous sharks patrolling the beachs. The thought was that by the time we arrived, we would meet her when she came ashore, hoist her up, evaluate the injury and perform surgery on her.

However, the trip was not without positive elements. We did find a healthy leatherback population nesting on the island (check out the picture of the big girl below...and no, we did not have lights out there to take the pictures...this has been enhanced via photoshop/picasa)....we also witnessed two groups of hatchlings and assisted some of them in finding the water (due to Light pollution) - amazing as it may seem, there is light pollution on the islands. On one cloudy night, the hatchlings started back up the beach, away from the ocean toward a set of lights....this obviously underscores how sensitive they are to artificial lights. And the lights weren't close to us! Another positive was in meeting a group of dedicated and absolutely wonderful Fish and Game people who have been working on the islands!

Next time I am going to discuss performing dental procedures on dogs and cats...without the use of anesthetics....stay tuned!