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Getting stronger
Crush is a juvenile green sea turtle who was rescued near Hilton Head Island in March, with injuries including a fractured front flipper. He was moved into Zucker Family Sea Turtle Recovery in August to complete his rehabilitation and has been improving steadily.
Courtesy of South Carolina Aquarium
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Sea turtle status
Interactive touchscreens at the triage station at Zucker Family Sea Turtle Recovery allow guests to work through the steps of diagnosing an injured sea turtle. Sea Turtle Care Center manager Willow Melamet demonstrates how the touchscreens can be used to photograph a turtle, check its vital signs, take X-rays and inspect the animal for internal and external injuries.
Photo by Alexander Fox
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Perilous waters
Kelly Thorvalson, the aquarium’s conservation program manager, explains to Tracy and Steve Jones, visiting from Richmond, Virginia, what they are seeing in some of the sea turtle X-rays, including fishing hooks lodged in an esophagus and intestinal impactions caused by swallowing foreign materials.
Photo by Alexander Fox
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Learning to help
The Recovery Theater is the last stop on the tour through Sea Turtle Recovery. Katie Camburn of Charleston and her children Emma, 4, and Liam, 2, watch the five-minute looping video that teaches visitors about the plight of sea turtles and offers ideas about how to help protect these animals.
Photo by Alexander Fox
Coral barely moves on the floor of her watery tank, her face turned away from the viewing window. Her shy, restful state is understandable; this Kemp’s ridley sea turtle only recently moved in, and she’s recuperating from some rough injuries.
In a neighboring tank, Jerry, a loggerhead, is farther along in his recovery, gaining strength after a severe boat-strike wound. Several little people press noses and palms against his glass window to watch him swim.
And in a larger tank, Jacques, another loggerhead, is practically showing off, circling and diving to the delight of a crowd of onlookers. Just three months earlier, Jacques was rescued and brought to the Sea Turtle Care Center at the South Carolina Aquarium with debilitated turtle syndrome—emaciated, dehydrated and lethargic. Now, as everyone can see, he’s well on his way to full recovery.
“Sea turtles have an uncanny ability to move people,” says Kelly Thorvalson, conservation programs manager at the Charleston aquarium. “They’re incredibly stoic, ancient and peaceful. When people see a sea turtle that is sick or injured, especially from human impact, it makes a big difference.”
That’s why the aquarium’s new Zucker Family Sea Turtle Recovery rehab-viewing area is such a boon to both the turtle hospital and aquarium visitors. Since the aquarium started taking in sick and injured turtles in 2000, plenty of turtle lovers have wanted a behind-the-scenes look at the rescued animals, but the old space was too tight to allow more than a few small tour groups a day. With floor-level tanks—and even kiddie pools—housing the injured turtles, the makeshift hospital offered a poor view of the life-saving work taking place.
“And each tour meant the staff had to stop treatments,” says Josephine O’Brien, the aquarium’s public affairs and advertising coordinator. “This space lets us give turtles the best care, and people can see them without us having to stop what we do.”
Opened in May, Sea Turtle Recovery is a free-flowing, interactive space on the aquarium’s main floor that not only doubles the hospital’s capacity for treating injured turtles but allows all aquarium visitors to spend as much time as they like with the recovering animals.
“You’re coming in just as the sea turtle does,” Sea Turtle Care Center manager Willow Melamet says at the center’s entrance, where a recording plays a phone call reporting a turtle found injured.
Go first to the triage station, set up with interactive computer tablets—at multiple heights, for tall and small people—and three models of turtle patients with different injuries. Each represents one of the species most commonly treated here: Kemp’s ridley, loggerhead and green sea turtles.
“You can be the vet or the staff member to triage and start to treat that animal,” Melamet says. Step-by-step diagnostic screens help visitors check vital signs, assess symptoms and take X-rays.
At the nearby wall-mounted lightbox, you can view X-rays to look for common ways turtles swim into trouble off the S.C. coast—for example, swallowed fishing hooks, fishing line wrapped around flippers or stuck in intestines, and broken bones or a cracked carapace (shell) from a boat strike.
But the biggest show is in seven large, soundproof tanks, each holding 1,000 to 4,000 gallons of salt water, where recovering turtles swim in full view. You can see in, but the turtles can’t see out. In front of each tank is a touchscreen telling that turtle’s story, so you can read about patients like Coral, Jerry and Jacques, catching up on their history, treatment and status. This same information is frequently updated on the aquarium’s blog, so turtle lovers can monitor their favorite patients’ progress from home after their visit.
“You’ll have people who just stand there, staring at the turtles, with that eye-level view,” Melamet says. “For people who’ve never seen a turtle before, seeing one for the first time can be momentous.”
Those tanks mean the hospital can care for increasing numbers of sick and injured turtles, Thorvalson says. “For the past four years, we’ve been over our capacity—we’ve had more turtles than tanks.” Sea Turtle Recovery, she says, “allows us to treat all the turtles that need us.”
More than 230 sea turtles have been rescued and rehabbed by the Care Center, and Sea Turtle Recovery gives visitors a front-row seat to the healing. The Recovery Theater—last stop on the journey—shares a five-minute video that engages visitors with ideas about how to help protect sea turtles.
“People connect with the turtles, so we’re using them as ambassadors for the ocean,” Melamet says. “The things that are affecting turtles are also affecting other marine animals. They’re like our spokes-animal.”
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How you can help sea turtles
Because human behaviors are among the threats to sea turtles, there are things people can do to help ensure the animals’ health and safety.
Reduce use of single-use plastics: Fishing line, water bottles, shopping bags and eating utensils get discarded in the environment. When they make their way into our waters, they can get ingested by sea turtles, where they interfere with the gastrointestinal tract and cause illness and death. Recycle any plastics you use.
Take part in beach sweeps: If you’re near the coast, you can participate in group efforts to pick up trash along the shorelines.
Steer clear of turtles: Boaters should observe speed restrictions in no-wake zones and be alert to turtles coming to the surface of the water to breathe. Damaging boat strikes happen when boats and turtles try to share the same spaces.
Fish with care: Anyone fishing along the coast can help by not discarding used monofilament fishing line in the water and not using barbed hooks.
Learn more about sea turtles: The South Carolina Aquarium is a good place to learn more about the sea turtles that are common along our coast and the ways humans can help care for them. Visit scaquarium.org/sea-turtle-care-center to start learning.
Call for help: If you find an injured or stranded sea turtle along the S.C. coast, contact the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources 24-hour hotline at (800) 922-5431. You can learn more at dnr.sc.gov/seaturtle/stssn.htm.
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Get There
The South Carolina Aquarium is located at 100 Aquarium Wharf, Charleston.
Hours: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. Closed Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day, Dec. 25. Open 9 a.m. to noon on Dec. 24. Turtle shows in the Sea Turtle Recovery area, including question-and-answer sessions with a sea-turtle biologist, are held daily at 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.
Admission: $29.95 for ages 13 and up; $22.95 for ages 3–12; toddlers and members admitted free
Details: Visit scaquarium.org or call (843) 577‑3474.
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Related story
Rescuing reptiles – Marine biologist Kelly Thorvalson has been rescuing sea turtles for quite a long time.