On August 8, a Coast Guard team in Marathon, Florida, responded to an urgent call. A female loggerhead sea turtle was struggling to swim. They found her front flipper tangled in a fishing line.
The team carefully brought the large turtle onto their ship. They rushed her to The Turtle Hospital.
A Special Hospital for Sea Turtles
The Turtle Hospital opened in 1986. It was the world's first veterinary hospital just for sea turtles. It rescues, rehabilitates, and releases injured turtles. Since it started, it has treated over 3,000 sea turtles.
We're a new kind of news feed.
Regular news is designed to drain you. We're a non-profit built to restore you. Every story we publish is scored for impact, progress, and hope.
Start Your News DetoxBette Zirkelbach, the hospital's general manager, shared an update on TikTok. "We have our newest patient just pulled in in the turtle hospital ambulance," she said.
The guardsmen who saved the turtle named her Roxanne. After dropping her off, many stayed to help with her first exam.
"The Coast Guard is an incredible partner for the Turtle Hospital," Zirkelbach noted. "It takes a village to get these turtles rescued. And Roxanne is a big girl."
Roxanne weighed 221 pounds. Zirkelbach explained that sea turtle entanglements are increasing. This is especially true during commercial lobster season in the Florida Keys.
"She is entangled in a trap line," Zirkelbach said. "Fortunately, it doesn’t look nearly as bad as Hope’s entanglement." She was cautiously hopeful Roxanne's flipper could be saved.
Hope was another loggerhead sea turtle rescued in June. She weighed 150 pounds and was tangled in an anchor line. Her right flipper was so badly hurt it needed amputation. Two months later, Hope is doing well in rehab and might return to the ocean.
Roxanne's flipper looked salvageable at first glance, even though it was swollen.
"We won’t know until we work with her, but every effort will be made," Zirkelbach added.
Several guardsmen helped hold Roxanne for her X-rays. "You can see the challenge with these lateral X-rays with a big, strong turtle," Zirkelbach explained.
A Surprise Discovery
During the X-rays, the technician made a surprising discovery. Roxanne was pregnant. "Take a look," she said. "100 eggs."
"Really?" a Coast Guardsman asked in surprise.
The X-ray technician explained that a nest can have up to 200 eggs. This year, nests seemed to be larger.
On August 9, The Turtle Hospital shared good news. Roxanne was going back to the ocean. "Our medical team determined she was healthy enough to return to the ocean," they wrote. "She was tagged and released back into the wild, where hopefully she’ll continue on her journey toward nesting season."
The same guardsmen who rescued her came back to carry her from the van to the beach.
This rescue had a happy ending. It also reminds everyone to properly secure fishing gear. This helps keep ocean animals safe.
