The Turtle Hospital

We took a tour of the Turtle Hospital today. Now we know more about Sea Turtles than we thought there was to know. The Sea Turtle Hospital is the only state certified treatment center for sea turtles. There are 7 different species of sea turtles and they are entirely different from land turtles.All the species are on the endangered list except the loggerhead which in "at risk". They have fins not feet, hardly ever leave the water once hatched,except females when laying eggs on the beach, and cannot retract their heads and fins. The Turtle Hospital has treated and released over 1100 turtles over the years. There are a number of bad things: fish hooks, fish filiment line, garbage mistaken for food, a form of cancer that has developed in the last 100 years (that I won't even try to spell), and the most unbelievable, a condition they call bubblebutt that is caused by a sudden inward gasp of air that is trapped in the turtles body and results in a bubble that distorts the shell and that will not allow the turtle to dive and cannot be relieved. These turtles are kept permanently in the hospital since they cannot survive in the sea. The survial rate to adulthood, which takes about 25 years to reach, is not high. Only 1 in 100 hatchlings make it to sixty miles offshore and only 1 in 1000 survive to adulthood. Some pictures: first the Ambulance, next a group of bubblebutts in the 100,000 gallon saltwater pool, third a closer shot of a bubblebutt (look closely and see the bubble in the middle of the shell), fourth a shot of the large seawater pool, and fifth a loggerhead in a treatment pool who has a internal virus that requires an antibiotic. There are a number of treatment pools there they recover from cancer and internal illnesses. The tour and lecture is 90 minutes long and very interesting.