Spitfire

Georgia Sea Turtle Center - Monitoring of Rehabilitated Patients

A project of Georgia Sea Turtle Center.

click map for full-size version Spitfire seems to have a very specific area she likes to be, according to her map. It's not surprise as just offshore Georgia are loggerhead feeding grounds, plentiful in blue grab, horseshoe crabs and knobbed whelks. Spitfire hasn't been transmitting goog signals recently, but she has given ups 'blips', indicating she's still around!

Full-Size Map (78KB)
Zoom Map (70KB)

Species: Loggerhead
Life Stage: Sub-adult
Gender: Female
Release Date: 2008-05-03 07:00:00
Release Location: Jekyll Island
Last Location: 2008-09-10 15:00:55

Background

Spitfire is a juvenile loggerhead sea turtle that stranded on a beach in Volusia County, Florida on October 1, 2007. She was taken to the Volusia Marine Science Center in Ponce Inlet, Florida. Then on December 3, 2007 she was transferred to the Georgia Sea Turtle Center.



Spitfire was a “floater” turtle, unable to submerge herself. Her floating would vary from a sideways tilt to tail up. On December 21, 2007 an endoscopy was conducted to try to determine the cause of the air buildup in Spitfire’s coelomic cavity (aka body cavity). The results of the procedure showed that Spitfire had a tear in her lung, which had since healed, but was most likely the cause of the gas buildup. A procedure was done to remove the air, and about 4 liters were removed!



Spitfire was released from Jekyll Island, GA on May 3, 2007 during out annual NestFest event.

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