To Those Wondering:

The Georgia Sea Turtle Center has seen some interesting patients in its three years of existence.  We’re constantly treating cases such as boat strikes, shark bites, cold stunning, gastrointestinal issues, vision impairment, debilitated turtle syndrome, ingestion or entanglement of marine debris, ingestion of or entanglement in fishing gear, as well as the various “mystery turtles” that demand out-of-the-box thinking and much research on the part of our staff.

As of June 29th, 2010, we have ten patients in the hospital who arrived floating.  Of course, each turtle is unique in some way: species, symptoms, and so on.  We have to use our observational skills along with the scientific method to determine what we can do to help every animal in our care.  Diagnosis begins with an overall exam, cleaning off of any epibionts (animals living on the turtle), a blood draw and analysis, and x-rays.  The vet and rehab staff will compile a list of all symptoms a patient has.  Then, they will begin to treat those symptoms.  They are also required to piece together a story for the education staff, who need to know what happened in order to inform guests.

Some cases are obvious: a boat strike looks like a clean slicing wound, or a series of parallel prop wounds (equidistance from one another).

Some cases are not so apparent: a turtle who is floating who has no air its body cavity or gas in its GI tract.

The Georgia Sea Turtle Center’s current patients (as of June 28th, 2010) who arrived floating are Griffin, Al, Ghus, Bubbles, Erika, Carning, Caton, Ed, Frye, and Thalassia.  Yes, these ten sea turtles were stuck at the water’s surface, but that does not mean “floating” has one specific cause.  It’s really an observational diagnosis; there can be multiple maladies that lead to floating.

Here are some examples:

Griffin has suffered a brain injury similar to a human stroke.  He may not remember how to dive on a regular basis.  He regularly gets “dressed up for dinner” (technically breakfast) by wearing a neoprene suit on his carapace.  We weight the suit and draw his towards the bottom of his tank by use of food prompts.  He responds well to this physical therapy program.

Al was named for the algae on his shell and for his favorite food (algae).  Al was floating from gas build-up in his intestines.  We gave him Regulin and Cisapride, drugs for gut motility.  Honestly, working with turtles can be a real gas.

Ghus (short for “esophagus”) ate plenty of mono-filament (recyclable) fishing line that was partially passing through the gastrointestinal tract.  We removed the line during a day-long surgical procedure.  That has nothing to do with his or her floating condition.  It turns out that Ghus has a lung tear.

Bubbles had a fracture on the bottom shell (plastron) and was found because concerned citizens knew that a floating sea turtle is not healthy.

Erika has air trapped between tissue layers.  We’ve aspirated air from her body cavity many times, and the air keeps replacing itself!  We still do not understand why the air is trapped in such a way or why it continually comes back.  We are currently trying to determine possible infectious causes of her illness.

Carning had air trapped in its body cavity, around the vital organs.  We aspirated air, and that seemed to help.  Carning is now one of our more active turtles.

Caton. Oh, dear.  She’s an odd one.  She arrived with intestinal blockage (impaction) that was causing gas build-up in her gastrointestinal tract.  We gave her a drug called Cisapride, which was for gut motility.  In an extremely abbreviated story: she defecated and dove.  However, there is no short story in a hospital setting.  Caton is our first turtle to refuse release…twice!  We even removed her satellite tracking device.  So disappointing.  Maybe, she’ll “scute outta here” the next time we try to release her.

Ed is a female.  We performed laparoscopic surgery to find out why this juvenile green sea turtle was stuck at the water’s surface.  We found a hematoma (bruising between layers of tissue) causing the lung to curl, which may or may not have been why Ed was floating. Ed began diving on her own relatively soon after surgery.

Frye wears “goggles” and needs glasses.  Okay, “goggles” is a metaphor for the nictitating membrane that protects Frye’s eyes from salt sting.  The second statement refers to Frye’s vision impairment.  Frye spends the majority of his or her time at the top of the water, bobbing like a buoy.  We are trying to find a permanent captive home for our Soleil Moon Frye.

Thalassia eats where she lives and lives where she eats.  She was aptly named for her home and food: a type of sea grass.  Thalassia has what looks like old boat strike wounds that had healed in the wild.  The propeller injury may have interrupted the gastrointestinal tract, causing leafy blockage and gas build-up.  It also could be the reason Thalassia has trouble using her rear flippers to steer.

The Georgia Sea Turtle Center staff have treated other floater patients with torn lungs.  If we calculate that in, then floating can be caused by a lung tear, a brain injury, gastrointestinal issues, or air trapped in the body for some other reason besides a lung tear.

Questions commonly asked of our Education staff include:

1. Do sea turtles eat something in the wild to remedy their gas? (Great question!  We ourselves do not know.  Sounds likes a great research topic.)
2. Is gas common? (We don’t know.  We see only a small percentage of the entire sea turtle population.)
3. Are stroke-like events due to age? (Probably not.)
4. How do they get air in their bodies? (Sometimes a blunt force trauma like the hull of a boat or getting struck by another turtle can jostle the innards enough to subsequently pull a muscle away from the lung.  Other times, we simply don’t have an immediate answer.)
5. WHY IS FLOATING BAD FOR SEA TURTLES? They can not dive for food, nor can they avoid predators.  Other potential issues include: greater risk of boat strikes, or marine debris entanglement.

If you happen to see a sea turtle floating in the ocean, call 1-800-2-SAVE-ME (if you live in Georgia).  To find other states’ sea turtle stranding networks, follow this link to the seaturtle.org stranding network locator.

Thank your for taking the time to read this BLOG and for doing your part to help these beautiful endangered species.

Honestly,

Amanda Noble

Education Member

The video above is the laparoscopic camera inside of Vida, a loggerhead sea turtle (read on for more information about her procedure and recovery!). You are able to see her ovaries, the yellowish material at the beginning of the video, her lung which is the bubbly-looking pink stuff, her liver which is darker red near the bottom of the video. Watch until the end and you will see her heart beating along the left side of the video! Cool, a sea turtles heart!

The Georgia Sea Turtle Center veterinarian, Dr. Norton, preformed laparoscopy and endoscopy on two loggerhead sea turtles. These procedures use a small camera at the end of a scope inserted inside the animal through an instrument called a trocar. The trocar allows the veterinarian to utilize instruments such as a biopsy forceps in order to take samples of any organs or comprimised areas inside the animal. Both procedures went very well and the turtles are recovering nicely.

Vida’s procedure was first, starting at 8:00AM the morning of January 25th. The doctor injected the patient with anesthetic drugs and when she was sleepy enough he inserted a trach tube into her trachea and administered a gas anesthesia to keep her sleeping for the procedure. Laparoscopy requires the animal to be tilted on her side so that her organs fall away from the point of entry of the scope. Once inside, Dr. Norton had a good view of all major organs - kidney, liver, lungs, and we were even able to see the heart beating! Vida is a young female, as we were able to see her ovaries. Her procedure went very well and nothing was observed out of the normal so she was recovered from anesthesia and placed back into water later that day. She is doing great now, eating very well and active in her tank. Hopefully she will remain in good health and will be released this spring.

Griffin is another of our loggerhead sea turtle patients. His endoscopy procedure (endoscopes are long, flexible scopes with a small camera on the end and instrument channels built in) was after Vida had recovered. Dr. Norton placed the endoscope down his trachea (through the trach tube) and was able to see down to where the trachea splits into two bronchi. His suspisions were confirmed as a large amount of mucus was found in the trachea, indicating he has pneumonia. Dr. Norton also took the endoscope and passed it down Griffin’s throat and into his stomach, everything looked good up to that point. Upon moving the camera in the GI tract a little further, it became apparent that the duodenum (the first part of the small intestine) had an ulcer-like appearance. Where you should see nice healthy pinkish tissue, the area looked yellow with several blood spots. Biopsy samples were taken by passing a long biopsy instrument through the scope and into the area in question. The small forceps grabs a small portion of the tissue and tears it out, leaving very small trauma. After the biopsies were taken, the veterinarian decided to check out the other end. He took a different scope and passed it through Griffin’s cloaca. We now know Griffin is for sure a male (we suspected as much with his large, thick tail) because we were able to see his reproductive parts. Everything else on this end appeared as it should. Griffin was recovered from the procedure and is doing well. He has just recently started to show interest in eating on his own again, although hasn’t eaten anything yet. We have cut back on his tube feedings to once a day hoping to encourage him to eat on his own. He continues to get stronger and more alert each day. He is on antibiotics, gut motility drugs, iron, ulcer medication and pancreatic enzymatic powder to help with digestion.

Erika Kemler

Hospital Coordinator