10 sea turtles find warmer waters in Florida

Good health and at least three working flippers and one good eye are the requirements before the 10 newest residents of Mote Marine Laboratory can go back into their home in the ocean.

Mote Marine Laboratory’s Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Hospital admitted nine Kemp’s ridley sea turtles and one green sea turtle Friday to rehabilitate the turtles and, someday, return them to the ocean.

Transported in banana boxes, the turtles were brought to Mote by private plane from New England Aquarium, or NEAQ, in Quincy, Mass. All of them were cold-stunned, or suffered from being too cold. Those that come to Mote had been rewarmed and stabilized by NEAQ, according to the Massachusetts aquarium’s website.

Most of the turtles currently in Mote’s care have visible signs of suffering from the cold, including marks on their shell, Rehabilitation and Medical Care Coordinator Lynne Byrd said.

How long they stay depends on their health and progress, but Byrd said they are typically in and out of Mote within six months. They can stay longer, if medically necessary.

To be released, the turtles must have at least one good eye and three good flippers, Byrd said.

In their first few days at their new home, the turtles have been evaluated and kept under close watch.

One by one, the turtles — all with festive holiday-related names — are pulled from the tanks, have a blood sample taken and then are carried upstairs for a radiograph, or an x-ray.

Caregivers are also looking to see who is eating and defecating, as well as checking the turtles’ weight and measurements.

Though some turtles still required testing Monday afternoon, there was one in the group, Doodle, that had Mote officials concerned. Byrd said it’s unclear if Doodle has vision in either eye and it has yet to eat.

“We’re pretty concerned about him,” Byrd said. “He’s one of our most critical patients.”

Doodle is currently on high-dose antibiotics, Byrd said.

“We don’t give up on anybody,” Byrd said, recalling a turtle that once regrew eyelids while in rehabilitation.

Doodle shares a large, round tank with Snicker, though they are separated by netting and few bricks. The new turtles were nearly all sharing tanks, all separated by similar nets. Byrd said they don’t like to keep Kemp’s together because they tend to be alone in the wild and would bite each other if they were not separated.

Jenna Rouse, an animal care technician at Mote, said the turtles are too young for them to know if they are male or female yet and they estimate they are a couple of years old.

The Kemp’s weigh between 1.3 kilos and 3.3 kilos, Byrd said.

“That’s really little turtles,” Byrd said.

Because they all look so similar, though Kemp’s can vary in color, they’ve been marked with numbers using fingernail polish, in addition to their given names.

Mote took 10 of 46 sea turtles brought to Florida. The rest were divided between Clearwater Marine Aquarium, Florida Aquarium and Sea World Orlando, Mote officials said. The turtles have been under the care of the NEAQ for a nearly a month before arriving.

NEAQ sends the turtles to other aquariums when they begin to run out of space to care for the hundreds that come in suffering from exposure to the cold in the New England winter waters.

In the last several years the number of mostly young, cold-stunned turtles that become stranded on Cape Cod in the fall has more than tripled, leaping to an annual average of more than 300 turtles, according to an NEAQ news release.

The turtles come to Florida to finish their rehabilitation before they can be released back into the ocean on the east coast.

This story was originally published December 11, 2017 at 2:07 PM with the headline "10 sea turtles find warmer waters in Florida."