Rehabbed sea turtle swims into open water off Anna Maria Island. Here’s why that matters
In front of a small crowd and with a round of applause, a loggerhead sea turtle nicknamed “OH” swam into the still-blue waters of Tampa Bay on Wednesday morning from the shore of Anna Maria’s Bayfront Park.
OH was found by a family in December “floating funny” in a residential canal and the family called Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium’s stranding hot line for help.
Stephannie Kettle, public relations manager for Mote, said what was happening to the turtle, “is not normal behavior. The turtle was brought to our Mote hospital and presented with a lot of buoyancy issues where they are not able to submerge properly. If they are out in the water where a turtle can’t submerge properly, they would be more susceptible to boat strikes and predators.”
OH received some good old fashioned tender loving care along with some antibiotic and iron treatments, which proved to be effective.
“Those buoyancy issues kind of dissipated and went away,” Kettle said. “The turtle was able to dive so we put it in a much a bigger pool and was able to do good dives and it was time to get the turtle back into the water.”
Mote staff isn’t sure what happened to the young loggerhead.
Kettle said buoyancy issues are typically related to boat strikes. Air gets trapped in the animal’s body cavity after impact but OH had no boat strike markings. However, Kettle said air can still get trapped for unknown reasons and cause similar buoyancy problems.
Staff also doesn’t know if OH is a male or female. Kettle explained that sub-adults have no external features to indicate sex. Regardless of sex, OH is an important piece of the sea turtle ecosystem.
“All sea turtles are either threatened or endangered with extinction so when it comes to our rehabbing turtles, each turtle is important,” Kettle said. “So we want to rehab them and get them back out into the water. The Manatee/Sarasota region is one of the densest nesting communities on the entire Gulf of Mexico so these loggerheads in our area are very important to their entire population.”
Nesting season begins May 1 and Wednesday’s release also was a good opportunity for public education.
“It’s a chance for the public to see a turtle and teach them about our stranding hot line,” Kettle said. “When you call us, we can get to the turtle, dolphin or manatee and we can get them back into the water.”
The hot line at 888-345-2335 is monitored 24/7 and the public is encouraged to call it whenever they see a distressed or deceased sea turtle, manatee or dolphin.
“We have a lot of sea turtles hanging out in our area this time of year,” Kettle said. “They forage around here, they mate around here and then come onshore to nest. It’s really important that if people see a distressed sea turtle to give us a call and really important that people don’t try to intervene with the animal. You really need trained responders to respond to the animal so the best thing to do is give us a call immediately and not attempt to assist.”