With the growing excitement for, and the successful release of Bev this afternoon some of you may be wondering what is happening with the rest of our sea turtle patients here at the sea turtle center.

Griffin is our newest sea turtle patient here at the center. He originally stranded off Daytona beach and was taken to the Volusia County Marine Science Center. He is unable to dive and can not eat on his own. After several weeks, the staff there decided that they would like to transfer him here to see if new eyes could help find the mystery problem. We recieved him and after some initial xrays found he has a lot of gas in his GI tract and are treating him for a bacterial infection. We are also tube feeding him twice a day until he begins eating again on his own.

Dylan is doing quite well, he has started eating live pray regularly. However, because he is an unexperienced migrator and the waters off of our coast are rapidly getting cold we have decided to release him early next year once the waters again warm up. We want him to have lots of time to enjoy our coast before he has to migrate. We will equip him with a satellite transmitter so that we will be able to track him after release.

Sage, our green hatchling that was affected by red tide, is hanging in there and has started to dive and eat much better! He is still pretty thin so we are going to hang on to him until he is ready to go!

Number 11, our straggler loggerhead hatchling is growing by leaps and bounds. We have started to do enrichment with him the same way we do with our larger sea turtles. He gets a small amount of fish frozen into an icecube. He may soon be getting a new name as well as taking his first trip to a new home elsewhere at the center.

Amelia, our other loggerhead hatching that was affected by red tide is also growing by leaps and bounds. She is also recieving icecubes for enrichment. She, however, is being prepared for release! We are currently trying to find a way to get her to the gulf stream, which is turning out to be quite a challenge! Once we have secured some first class transportation we will be able to take her home!

~ Jeannie Miller Aquarist