The Turtle Hospital in the Florida Keys
On our road trip through the Florida Keys, we made a last minute decision to stop in Marathon to visit the Turtle Hospital, and it was such a cool, one-of-a-kind experience!
The Turtle Hospital, which opened in 1986, is a charitable organization with four main goals: (1) rescue and rehab injured sea turtles, (2) educate the public, (3) conduct sea turtle research and (4) work toward legislation to create cleaner and safer beaches and water. Since its founding, the Turtle Hospital has treated and released over 1,500 turtles. Sometimes the turtles have public releases, where onlookers can watch as the turtles swim away toward their next chapter in life.
When we arrived, we juuust made the next tour cutoff time, so we quickly paid our admission fee ($25.00 each at the time of this writing) and hopped in the tour group of about 20 people leaving the gift shop/museum area.
We saw a short slideshow about the different sea turtles and learned about the reasons why sea turtles would be at the hospital. Several items were passed around for everyone to see including this shell.
After the overview, we were able to walk around the presentation room to see some of the photos and artifacts, plus ask our tour guide any early, burning questions. There was a whiteboard on one wall showing a map of all the turtles and their locations and a nice area showing which kinds of turtles were currently on the property. During our visit, there were 42 sea turtles. There was a board that broke down the population by species, so we geeked out over that. Green sea turtles were the most common during our visit with a few Loggerhead turtles mixed in. There was also one Kemp’s Ridley, which was neat because this species of sea turtle is considered the rarest.
The next stop was to see the two surgical areas. We visited on a day when no active surgeries were taking place. This is a working hospital though, so it’s possible to see a turtle on the operating table during a visit. This little guy served as a great stand in.
At this point we finally got to see what we came for: real sea turtles! And what’s the best way to see an animal up close and personal? To feed it! Each person on the tour was given a generous handful of dry turtle food (dry turtle food? yep!) resembling dog food kibble which was less surprising once we learned that Purina makes specific food for the sea turtles.
Several of the turtles at the hospital had “Bubble Butt Syndrome” a phrase coined after the hospital’s first resident, Bubble Butt. When a turtle’s shell is struck by a boat, the turtle becomes too buoyant and cannot submerge itself underwater, which becomes a huge issue when searching for food and nutrients. Another common ailment we saw among the turtles here is called fibropapilloma, which appears as tumors on the sea turtles’ bodies.
One common theme started to emerge: sea turtles will eat anything and everything. Unfortunately this includes things like plastic bags (these look like jellyfish in the water, and sea turtles love to eat jellyfish), straws, netting, styrofoam, plastic gloves, balloons, twine, and just about any other bits of garbage you can image. Garbage does not break down in their digestive systems and this causes a lot of problems related to intestinal impaction. Oddly enough, we learned that the turtles are given good old metamucil and fiber to help them pass the blockages naturally. When this doesn’t work, surgery is usually needed.
As we walked back to the outdoor holding pools, we were greeted by lizards big and small. These little guys must not mind the company of rehabbing turtles because they were everywhere. Seriously though, if you’re a turtle going through rehab, this place offers a pretty scenic view!
Toward the back of the property there’s a large tidal pool as well as some individual holding tanks for sea turtles who need a little extra recovery and recuperation time. We heard a pretty crazy story about a loggerhead sea turtle named Shelmore. He arrived at the hospital acting weird which the veterinarians interpreted as him having a normal impaction. When the veterinarians took x-rays, they saw a foreign object inside. They conducted an ultrasound to see where the foreign object was located but couldn’t really find much besides a large infection with an abscess. The real surprise happened once they started surgery on Shelmore. The abscess they saw on the x-ray turned out to be a 2-foot long eel, which Shelmore had eaten alive, that was now trying to furiously eat its way out of Shelmore’s intestines! Gross!! The eel died due to lack of oxygen and Shelmore was in pretty bad shape with a severe infection. He was in recovery when we visited and we hope he pulls through with flying colors.
Our last stop at the hospital was to see babies! Check out these little turtle hatchling that had been rescued.
We’re all about animals so it was pretty special to see so many sea turtles up close. It was uplifting to see so many receiving care and treatment to return to their natural environment. For those turtles with more significant injuries, it’s pretty neat that they have a dedicated location specifically catering to their recovery and ongoing care. We would definitely recommend this place to anyone who is intrigued by these large, loveable sea creatures.
