Treated for red tide illness, Mike the sea turtle is back in the wild
With three flippers and a sound mind, Mike was ready to go home into the ocean.
Recovering from illness caused by red tide, Mote Marine Laboratory workers and a few dozen spectators watched as the adult female loggerhead turtle was released back into the wild off of Bayfront Park on Anna Maria Island on Monday morning.
On Jan. 23, Mike was rescued off Longboat Key. At Mote, staff found her to be lethargic and suspected red tide toxins to be the culprit.
“We were experiencing an odd event with really large adult sea turtles coming ashore, and we think it had something to do with prolonged red tide,” said Lynne Byrd, the rehabilitation and medical care coordinator at Mote.
Red tide is expected along Florida’s Gulf Coast toward the end of summer and into early autumn, but the Karenia brevis bloom had continued to kill hundreds of fish and left Manatee beachgoers coughing through January.
As Mote staff were diagnosing Mike, she was also found with a PIT tag — researchers at the University of Central Florida had tagged her in 2011 as she nested on a Brevard County beach.
Researchers watching her nest had noticed she was having difficulty, as she was missing her back left flipper from an old injury, Byrd said, so they helped her dig her nest.
To get her back to good health, Mote staff gave her fluids and antibiotics to treat a possible lung infection. Six and a half weeks later, she was given the OK to return to the water, which she did without hesitation.
Janice Soderlund, a seasonal resident from Rhode Island, said this was the first time she’d ever see anything like this.
“To see it out of the water, it was just so awesome,” she said.
She was inspired to go a step further, helping out Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch, which later this week will begin monitoring the beach as a new turtle nesting begins.
“We’re going to adopt a nest so we can be godparents to these babies,” she said.
Hannah Morse: 941-745-7055, @mannahhorse
If you see...
- ...issues with sea turtle nests or hatchlings from Longboat Key to Venice, call Mote’s Sea Turtle Conservation and Research Program at 941-388-4331.
- ...stranded or dead sea turtles, dolphins or whales within Manatee or Sarasota county waters, call Mote’s 24-hour Stranding Investigations Program at 941-988-0212;
- ...stranded or dead sea turtles, dolphins or whales outside of Manatee or Sarasota county waters, call the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Wildlife Alert hotline at 1-888-404-3922.
This story was originally published April 10, 2017 at 11:51 AM with the headline "Treated for red tide illness, Mike the sea turtle is back in the wild."