Jul 31
On July 30, 2007 one of our Diamondback Terrapins “Pink” went on a field trip to Dr. Robert Baird’s office in Woodbine for a special visit.
Pink arrived at the GSTC earlier this month with a midline fracture of her mandible (lower jaw) after being hit by a car on the Jekyll Island Causeway. After being initially treated Dr. Terry Norton perfomed a temporary repair using materials donated by Dr. Baird. After this procedure she was able to eat squid on her own, but it remained clear that a permanent repair was needed. The repair remained stable while arrangements were made for her to travel to Dr. Baird’s office to have two titanium posts, donated by Dr. Baird, cemented in her mandible to stabilize the fracture.
After traveling to the office she was anesthetized by Dr. Norton and Dr. Baird went to work cementing the two posts into place. After about 45 minutes, the good patient was headed home to the center where she was able to rest comfortably for the evening.
This morning her repair looked great and she heartily ate her squid breakfast and is active in her tank. The center is very excited a appreciative of Dr. Baird and his team for making this possible. We look forward to continuing to work with community members in the future.
Jeannie Miller Aquarist
Jul 31
As many of you know, since his arrival, we have been working towards Dylan hunting and eating live prey. This morning one of our volunteers Jane Bryson and I gave Dylan two live blue crabs and almost immediately he began chasing one of them. He chased it all around his tank and then ever so cautiously bit off a claw and ate it. He then continued chasing it around and then finished off the crab with a quick bite of his powerful jaws.
We were very excited as this is the first time he has hunted and killed a live blue crab. This is a tremendous step in the right direction! Here are some pictures of the hunt and the catch!
Jeannie Miller Aquarist
Jul 26
If you’ve been watching Golden Boy’s satellite track at seaturtle.org for the past few days you may have noticed that we’ve been getting data but the map hasn’t updated. What’s probably happening is that Golden Boy is “settling in” to his ocean home and hasn’t been spending much time at the surface. In other words, he’s probably spending a lot of time on the bottom either resting or eating and only coming to the surface to breathe briefly. This means that the quality of the data we get from the satellite tracking system is low because the transmitter needs to be at the surface for a long period of time to get reliable location information. For example, notice all the little black dots on the map below (many on land) that couldn’t possibly be real locations.
As a way to have the map updated more frequently, Michael Coyne (webmaster of seaturtle.org) has created some filters that allow us to determine when some of those low quality data points might still be somewhat reliable indicators of location based on the frequency of data points in close proximity to each other. Mike Arendt, our colleague at SCDNR who is responsible for this monitoring project, has decided to try plotting these new filtered points so that we can get a “general sense” of what’s happening each day even if the locations aren’t completely accurate.
Here’s the latest map as of today (7/26/07):
-Bill
Jul 24
I am sad to report that Nick passed away this weekend. Nick had been battling respiratory problems and pneumonia that were probably the result of aspirating sea water and sand when she was being washed up on the beach before she was rescued. It is very difficult to fight pneumonia especially when the bacteria in the lungs are anti-biotic resistant (as was the case here) and the patient’s immune system is already compromised. As with many human cases, we saw some improvement initially (enough for us to treat the head injury with surgery and the orthopedic device) but ultimately we lost the battle to a very aggressive disease.
While we are saddened by her loss, we remember that our initial assessment suggested that she was unlikely to live for more than a few days after she arrived. Certainly she was a fighter and we’re glad we had the opportunity to give her the best chance she had. Nick served as a wonderful ambassador for her species and helped educate many people who might not otherwise have had the chance to see how amazing these animals are. (By the way, post-mortem examination also revealed that Nick was female, thus “Nick” is short for “Nikki.”)
The GSTC team is grateful to all of you who helped care for Nick, followed her progress in person or online, and who continue to support our work. Your passion and concern was seen and felt through the many emails, letters and “get well” cards we received on Nick’s behalf over the past few weeks. Thank you for caring so much.
We are thrilled to have had such a great “release” last week when Golden Boy returned to the sea and we look forward to treating and releasing many more patients as we move forward helping the ones we can!
Dr. Bill Irwin, Director
Jul 19
Dozens of people watched through the observation window into the treatment area as our colleagues from SC DNR attached a satellite transmitter to Golden Boy’s carapace (see photo).
They are doing a project looking at behavioral differences between debilitated turtles, rehabilitated turtles and wild-caught healthy turtles. We’ll post the link to Golden Boy’s satellite track to our website (georgiaseaturlecenter.org) as soon as we start getting data (which should be very soon).
At 2:15 PM this afternoon in front of a crowd of about 300 people, Golden Boy wasted no time as he crawled into the water and quickly swam offshore. We watched for nearly 20 minutes as he surfaced every few minutes to breathe farther and farther form the beach and held our collective breaths as he swam almost directly into the path of a shrimp boat operating nearby! Keep checking back for updates.
Dr. Bill Irwin, Director
Jul 17
Right in front of us, Dylan chowed down on a live horseshoe crab. He chased it around the tank and chomped on it from different angles. When he had a good “grip,” he used his front flippers to hold the crab while he ripped it apart (like tearing off a bite of beef jerky). Some photos are below (video to come soon).
-Bill
Jul 17
Golden Boy will receive his transmitter in the Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll Island at 11:00 a.m. Thursday morning. After the fixative has had a chance to set, we will transport him by truck to the beach access point just north of the Convention Center on N. Beachview Drive. There is a huge parking lot there with a dune cross-over on each side of the access point (the access point is for authorized vehicles only!!). The anticipated release time on the beach is between 2:00 and 2:30 p.m.
Here’s a photo of Golden Boy receiving his final veterinary check up prior to being released. He is in great shape and we are looking forward to following his travels! Our colleagues at South Carolina DNR are providing the transmitter as part of their ongoing research project studying differences between debilitated and healthy sea turtles. We are also grateful to our colleagues at Sea World Orlando for taking such great care of this turtle when there was no rehabilitation center here in Georgia!
Dr. Bill Irwin, Director
