Mote Marine Laboratory - Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Hospital

A project of Mote Marine Laboratory in conjunction with the partners and sponsors detailed below.

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Click on an animal's name for maps and more information.

Introduction

Mote's Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Hospital provides state-of-the-art critical care and chronic care for stranded sea turtles. The hospital's mission is to rescue animals that strand alive, rehabilitate the animals that can be saved, return animals to the wild, and necropsy the dead animals to learn how to help the live ones. Staff seeks to learn information that will expand our knowledge of the basic biology, the veterinary care and the disease processes of sea turtles. With the animals that are released back into the wild, we make every effort to do follow-up monitoring, which tells us how successful the rehabilitation was and adds to the basic understanding of the short- and long-term movements of these animals.

After release, the turtle movements are followed by Mote's Sea Turtle Conservation and Research Program.

Mote expanded the Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Hospital to double its capacity and allow Mote to provide care to twice the number of sea turtle patients at any given time. The increased capacity is especially important with so many sea turtles being affected by red tide and human interactions over the past few years. The hospital has treated 294 patients of five sea turtle species since opening in 1995.

HOW TO HELP:

Donations to Mote’s Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Hospital can be sent through the Development Office at Mote Marine Laboratory, 1600 Ken Thompson Parkway, Sarasota, FL 34236. Please mark the donation “Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Hospital.” Call (941) 388-4441, ext. 373 for more information.

For more information on Mote’s sea turtle rehabilitation, conservation or research programs visit www.mote.org/

Project Partners

Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Hospital

www.mote.org/seaturtlehospital

For more information about the case synopsis for each turtle, please visit the Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Hospital.

www.mote.org/Tuck

www.mote.org/willy

www.mote.org/Bruno

www.mote.org/JoeyII

www.mote.org/King

www.mote.org/VickiLee

www.mote.org/Marco

There have been no signals from Marco since the release which we believe is due to transmitter problems, and NOT a problem with Marco. Marco is a small turtle and his transmitter may have trouble clearing the surface. Water is now cooler so it may also relate to the turtle spending less time at the surface, and hence little opportunity for the radio messages to be sent. If Marco sends more signals, he will be added to the maps. Stay tuned.

Sea Turtle Conservation and Research Program

www.mote.org/seaturtles

Project Sponsors

Johnny's tag was provided by NOAA NMFS-SEFSC.

www.sefsc.noaa.gov/species/turtles

Tuck's tag was sponsored by donations in memory of Chuck Shumard.

Marco's tag was sponsored by Whalenet.

whale.wheelock.edu

Willy's tag was sponsored by Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch.

www.islandturtles.com

King's tag was sponsored by Penelope Kingman in memory of Barry Kingman.

Joey's tag was sponsored by 1800Endoscope.com in Bradenton.

www.1800endoscope.com

Bruno and Carol Falkenstein added funding for Bruno's tag.

Thank you to West Marine in Sarasota for supplying anti-fouling paint.

Wildlife Computers expedited building several transmitters to supply in time for release.

www.wildlifecomputers.com