The Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience
Sea Turtles Autumn and Dumbo were released October 16 at River to Sea Preserve.
Autumn and Dumbo were two quick rehab cases. Autumn came to us on the first day of fall after stranding in Huguenot Memorial Park. We believe she was exhausted after evading a predator, evidenced by the teeth marks found on her carapace and rear flippers. We just happened to have a freshly sterilized tank which she got all to herself. Our animal care team really enjoyed watching her interact with her hide enrichment during her stay. After less than a month she was ready to go back out into the ocean.
Dumbo came to us on Sunday, September 29th after a fisherman caught him on hook and line. Luckily, he responded quickly by calling FWC and left enough line to be taped to the top of his head. Our veterinarian performed an emergency surgery to remove the hook from his esophagus and Dumbo started eating seafood two days later. He also had tumors on his eyelid and flipper, but they were small and easily removed with one surgery. Dumbo was a big, beautiful green sea turtle and we were happy to be able to quickly return him to his natural environment.