- May 3, 2024
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In 2013, 1,886 sea turtles strandings (live and deceased) were reported in Florida. Of those, 296 sea turtles had been injured by colliding with boat. Rocky is one of those 296.
The loggerhead sea turtle was involved in a boat strike and suffered propeller strikes on the top of the shell and the head.
“The head is probably the most significant place to have an injury of this nature, so we have done lots of other diagnostics,” said Tonya Clauss, director of animal health for Georgia Aquarium. She, along with a team of veterinarians were visiting Marineland last week to accompany Rocky on a trip to Flagler Hospital in St. Augustine for a CT scan.
“None of this advanced imaging has been done before with the particular turtle – so we are taking Rocky to get a better understanding of the extent of the injuries the turtle suffered from the propeller strikes,” Clauss added.
Rocky came to Marineland Dolphin Adventure’s Neptune Park in June after being rehabbed for 10 months at Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium, in Sarasota.
“It was miraculous that they got this turtle to survive — the head wound was catastrophic,” said Dan Palmer, assistant manager of aquarists at Marineland Dolphin Adventure.
Rocky was force-fed for four months and the gash in her head and shell were treated at Mote. When the animal was stable, they wanted to provide it with a long-term care home and that is where Marineland’s Neptune Park comes into play.
Rocky is blind in one eye due to the strike to her head and her care takers are worried about vision in her other eye as well as brain damage. They hope that the CT scan will shed some light on these injuries.
“Rocky will be here for the foreseeable future,” Palmer said. “Because she has suffered these wounds and has no vision in one eye, the ocean would be a very difficult place for Rocky. In my opinion, I don’t think she’ll ever be releasable.”
Palmer said that sadly, most turtles that suffers injuries to this extent from boats don’t survive.
“I think that Rocky is a great ambassador for sea turtles in general,” Clauss said. “This is a great example of some of the challenges that sea turtles face and unfortunately, as people we love to utilize the ocean, be in boats – all those types of things. But it often times comes with cost. I think an important message is to show that there are a lot of dangers out there for sea turtles, and any time we’re doing anything in our oceans, we need to be very aware that there are creatures like this that are trying to live there and that’s their home.”
