Marathon, Florida Keys - Thursday, February 18th

February 25, 2021

Turtle Hospital - Marathon, FL

Having an early release day due to snow means that distance learning has an early release too. For me, that meant that we were able to do a little more exploring earlier in the day. Today we drove about a half hour north to Marathon, Florida which is a city that stretches over a few different Florida Keys. In Marathon there is a Turtle Hospital. The hospital is for the purpose of rescuing sick or injured sea turtles and rehabilitating them with the hope of releasing them back into the ocean once they are well. The Turtle Hospital offers tours and today we took a tour and learned a lot about sea turtles. Some things that cause a sea turtle to become sick and need rehabilitation are intestinal problems due to eating things such as plastics that are in the water, injuries due to getting entangled in fishing gear, a collision with a boat, or an illness that causes the growth of tumors on the turtle.

The Turtle Hospital is just like a real hospital in that it has an "emergency room" where the doctors examine the turtle to see how bad the illness or injuries are. The doctors can take blood tests and x-rays to help with the examinations. If needed, there is also an operating room for the sea turtles.

That might be a stuffed animal, but this is a real operating room

In the Turtle Hospital, there are rows of individual tanks that would be similar to hospital beds for people. Each turtle has its own tank to stay in while they recuperate.

Sea turtle hospital "beds"

When a sea turtle is in the hospital and is in a more fragile condition, they are placed in a tank with less water. This keeps the turtle from swimming around too much and would be similar to a person being placed on bed rest.

Tanks with lower water levels mean
turtle is on "bed rest"

As you pass each tank, there is a picture of the turtle on the day it was rescued. There is also a little biography about each turtle that tells you the turtle's name (the person that finds the sick/injured sea turtle gets to name it), the date the turtle was rescued and for what the turtle is being treated.

Each tank has a bio of the turtle

One of the reasons turtles find their way into the hospital (and unfortunately not able to return to the ocean) is called “bubble butt syndrome”. This is caused when an air pocket gets under a turtle’s shell (usually due to an injury). The air bubble changes the turtle’s buoyancy and causes them to float. This is a serious problem because “bubble butt” does not allow the turtle to dive, which they need to do for feeding. Weights are attached to the turtle’s shells to counterbalance them. With the weights, the turtle’s are once again able to maneuver normally but cannot return to the ocean because the weights need to be changed from time to time. These sea turtles become permanent residents at the Turtle Hospital.

A weight is placed on a turtle's
shell, if needed

The resident turtles live in a tidal pool. This means that the pool water is supplied by the tides of the ocean (bringing small fish for them to feed on too). We were also given some food pellets to feed the turtles.

Feeding resident sea turtles

In the evening, for dessert, we tried some Key Lime Pie. If you've ever had this dessert, you might not have realized that "Key Limes" are largely grown in the Florida Keys. Additionally, it is said that Key Lime Pie was first made in Key West.