Another Day with the Sea Turtles

I spent the entire day at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center today. They currently have 58 turtles. 56 of them are ill or awaiting surgery (more on that later). Most of the turtles that we are caring for have Fibropapilloma Tumors. I took several pictures today of these poor souls. The disease is not widely understood yet but it is a tragic virus. Disney is sending a surgery team down to Gumbo Limbo to surgically remove the "PAPS", especially from the turtle's eyes because without their sight, they are doomed.

The image above is of a very young green sea turtle with a fishing hook in his mouth. We had to sedate him to remove the hook and he will be released tomorrow.
The sad part about this is that the fisherman knew what happened and all he did was cut the fishing line and let the turtle go. Thank goodness someone witnessed this and grabbed the turtle and brought it to us. He would have died. The hook went right through his tongue.

The above picture is of the plastron (belly side) of a turtle that was speared. You read that correctly. A human speared this poor turtle. Dr Mettee explored the wound and we hope for a speedy recovery!

 

The two images above are two different turtles that both have wounds from being hit by a boat's propeller. The turtle in the first image had surgery today and we are hoping that he pulls through it but it's too soon to tell.

These animals need our help so spread the word to your fishing buddies, boating pals and sea turtle lovers. They need us to be a little more responsible and a little more caring.

Do the right thing and Keep Wagging!

The sea turtle saga continues

I spent the entire day at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center. We had another 20 Green turtles come in last night so they were lined up, awaiting exams, treatments and possible releases today. The picture to the left shows a young greenie with some of his best friends, the barnacles. And directly below, I'm about to give another young green turtle fluids after a cursory exam.

I found out something interesting today: All of these Green (yes, they've all been green turtles) turtles are coming from counties north of here. The water temperature down in Boca Raton has been consistently 70 degrees, which is fine for the turtles (and which is also why we have been releasing the  healthy greens down here).  When I left today there were about 15 turtles that were not releasable, mostlu due to low blood sugar from not eating for several days. Others had corneal ulcers that need to be treated. Treatment takes about 5 days which is why donations (check out the wish lists on their sites) are critical right now. Others simply don't have the strength yet to be released. But, as you can see from the picture below, this is what we're working toward: Freedom!
Our state is finally warming up a bit so the intake of turtles should slow down now. We shall see what tomorrow will bring.
Until then, Keep Wagging people!

There was a cold Sea Turtle..or two, or three, or three hundred

The temperatures have been unusually cold here in Florida. We are not used to so many consecutive days of freezing weather and neither are the sea turtles.
So far the state of Florida has seen at least 1,500 "Cold Stunned" sea turtles, mostly green, that just couldn't handle the cold temperatures anymore.
I received a call from Dr Nancy Mettee. She and I went to Slidell, La. after hurricane Katrina hit and we also went to St Croix to save a leatherback turtle together. She asked for my help so I found myself driving down to Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton. There were a lot of cold turtles and there were a lot of wonderful volunteers waiting to help them. We started right away with getting body weights, blood (to make sure they didn't need special or different meds) and fluids into them for support. Some of them were malnourished and depressed. Others were feisty and feeling better and ready to hit the beach. On Sunday they (Gumbo Limbo) had a total of fify Green Turtles recovering.
Once we were done with that group we headed up to Loggerhead Marine Life Center in Juno Beach, 45 minutes north. They had a total of 31 Green Turtles there. The volunteers here were equally wonderful. One volunteer's mom brought us food and hot chocolate...YUM!

It was a long day but not one person complained and every turtle had been taken care of before we left.
Today is another day and more turtles have been brought in for care. I will go back tomorrow for another day of wrestling 125lb turtles, scraping their barnacles off, giving injections and keeping them warm. I can't think of anything else I want to do more!

Thanks for reading and Keep Wagging!

Monique