Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Internship at the Mote Marine Laboratory

By: Madoka McAllister

Class of 2014, University of Illinois

In January 2010, I had the distinct pleasure of taking part in a marine animal rehabilitation internship at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida.  I had had some previous rehabilitation experience but never with marine animals so it was a very new, exciting opportunity for me.  Although the Rehabilitation Hospital at Mote takes in sea turtles, dolphins and whales, our patients were exclusively sea turtles during my time there.  Having gone into the internship knowing little about sea turtles, I was amazed to discover how intelligent and graceful they are.  Many had distinct personalities and over the duration of my internship, I became very fond of them.  

Florida experienced a sudden cold snap this past winter, with water temperatures dropping 5-8 degrees below average, resulting in the second coldest winter on record in many areas.  Most wildlife and plant life was severely impacted, including thousands of sea turtles that were cold-stunned as a result of the unusual weather.  Cold-stunned turtles are extremely weak and were unable to swim properly, often floating at the ocean's surface or washing up on shore.  I arrived at the Mote just in time to help out with the inflow of cold-stunned sea turtles. 

The process was generally the same for all turtles we took in: after doing a physical exam and assessing the health of each turtle, they would be placed in a tank by itself or with others.  Their water temperature had to be gradually increased, to minimize the shock of the water temperature change.  All of the turtles were fed a mix of capelin, shrimp and squid, and we also offered sea grass to the Green turtles if they weren’t eating well.  The patients were kept at Mote until they were completely healthy and the ocean had warmed to an appropriate temperature, and then were released in the same area where they were found.

All in all, we saw 45 sea turtles during my time at Mote, though many did not stay long and were released soon after they had been brought in.  However, a few were particularly memorable because they presented extra challenges.  Oreo was a cold-stunned Green turtle who came in towards the beginning of my internship.  We found a small lesion near his right front flipper, which was suspected to be fibropapillomatosis (FP).  He was quarantined and the lesion was successfully cryosurgically removed. Oreo also refused to eat for almost two weeks after he arrived.  It was a daily struggle trying to interest him in food and we were ecstatic when he finally started eating.  He was released in March, after his physical exams and bloodwork deemed him fit for release.  Other memorable cold-stunned turtles we successfully treated and released included Midnite Son, a tiny Green turtle who was a favorite of many; Gwen, an energetic and personable Loggerhead turtle; and Tarpon, a rare, beautiful Kemp’s Ridley turtle.

While the cold-stunned turtles made up the majority of our patients, the cold front was not all that negatively impacted the sea turtles. My favorite sea turtles were Captain Rex and Fisher, two playful Green turtles who stayed in the same tank.  Rex originally arrived at Mote as a cold-stunned turtle in March 2009.  Shortly before he was set to be released in July, a fracture was discovered in his left humerus, so he had to stay to heal.  Fisher came in June 2009 and was on antibiotics for several months due to an infection.  Fisher and Rex were both at Mote for so long that they lost much of the pigment in their shell, so once they were fit for release, they had to spent a month “tanning” in one of the outdoor tanks before they were both released in April 2010.

In February, a juvenile Green Turtle named Karen arrived.  Karen was tangled in some monofilament line, which had not only gotten wrapped around both of her front flippers, but had been ingested and entangled in her GI tract.  All of the external monofilament was removed and a cotton ball was tied around the end attached to the internal line.  We monitored her closely, performing regular radiographs and enemas to try to help the line pass through her system.  She improved slowly and we were ecstatic when she started eating more regularly.  After much anxious waiting and almost two weeks after arriving at Mote, she finally passed the monofilament, made a full recovery and was released towards the end of May.

We also helped care for Catch, a Loggerhead turtle, who was originally found in August 2009 with two large gashes in his carapace made by a boat propeller.  By the time we arrived in January, Catch’s wounds were well on their way to being healed and only had to be treated every other week, but it was a lengthy process to get him well enough to be released. 

I really enjoyed the rehabilitation internship at the Mote Marine Laboratory because it gave me an opportunity to learn a great deal about sea turtle husbandry and medicine and I was lucky enough to work with sea turtles with a variety of problems: some caused by humans and some environmental.  It gave me a greater appreciation for these animals and I hope to help them in the future as a veterinarian.