Hi all,

Back on November 5, I blogged about a stranded seal on Humarock Beach with facial injuries. The staff at the University of New England (UNE) recently sent photos of this animal and a medical update.

Upon initial exam, the UNE staff treated an approximately 3.5 inch long laceration on the animal's lower jaw. They also found several lesions around the mouth, which were cleaned and treated. The laceration was the source of all the blood you saw in the initial post.


These photos were taken by the UNE staff using the remote camera system in the rehabilitation bay where this seal is recovering.


The photo above is not the greatest quality but it does show the partially healed injury to the lower jaw.
















Seriously people, how cute is this photo! As you can see the seal is sticking out his tongue, while sleeping.

According to our colleagues at UNE this animal is also recovering from a respiratory infection. The animal is on antibiotics and is showing positive signs of improvements.

- Connie

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We are still waiting for the seasonal influx stranded sea turtles to start coming in. Usually we have many more patients than what we currently have. So far we haven't had as many stranded sea turtles this year. A couple of factors that may be keeping the turtles off the beaches are warmer weather and wind direction. We hope it may also mean that more turtles were able to get around and out of Cape Cod bay before the water gets too cold.

At this time of year, we expect the clinic to look like this.

But as we wait I thought I would take you through what will happen to a turtle as it goes through the initial triage process.

We have been keeping an eye on Goose, the green sea turtle, who was released on August 27, 2009 with a satellite tag so that we could track him. For the past couple months, Goose has been hanging out in Long Island Sound. We expected him to head east to the Gulf stream or south, but he stayed in Long Island Sound for quite some time. We were starting to get worried! Luckily, the hits we got from his tag yesterday show that he has made it out of the sound and is heading south. This is great news.

If you would like to follow Goose's track, visit seaturtle.org. You will notice that the map is updated weekly, since we have the tag only transmitting one day per week in order to save battery life. You can sign up to receive email updates or even adopt Goose!

~Kerry

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The goal of rehabilitation is to release the animals back into the wild, and there are many things we do here to make sure our sea turtles are ready. One part is to offer the turtles live food like they would eat in the wild, and for Kemp's ridleys and loggerhead sea turtles, this includes crabs. The crabs we offer are species that are found right here in the Boston Harbor, including the rock crab and the green crab.

A green crab (Photo credit: http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/FactSheet.asp?SpeciesID=190)

Bandelier stranded on October 17 and came to the Aquarium the next day. The first thing that we noticed was the defect in his hind flippers.

Notice the abnormality in Bandelier's rear flippers.

Melissa, Jeff and Adam drawing blood on Bandelier.

Yesterday we had a special visit from Jeff Corwin. He came by to take a look at our turtles and hang out for a small while at the aquarium. Jeff has recently finished filming a new documentary for MSNBC, airing on November 22, and he has just had a new book published called 100 Heartbeats: The Race to Save Earth's Most Endangered Species, which tells of the plight of many of the world's most endangered species.

Acadia the rescued loggerhead sea turtle

Part of the rehabilitation process on our animals is collecting blood and fecal samples. Through various diagnostics we can determine many issues that an animal may have.

Hi all,

It was a busy day in the field today. This morning we received a call from a person on Humarock Beach in Scituate, Mass. who found a stranded seal. For any of you who have followed this blog you know that seals commonly come out of the water to rest on shore and are often not injured or "stranded." As always it's important to keep your distance and observe the seal without disturbing it. You can report a seal you think is stranded by calling the 24-hour Marine Animal Hotline: (617) 973-5247.

The Rescue Team will not approach these seals unless there is an obvious injury. This seal, however, did have an injury and was lethargic. The following pictures show what that looks like.


Photos above were taken by Donald Armstrong. I authorized Donald to approach this
seal for good photographs, which I then used to make the decision to collect the animal. (Click to enlarge)


Photo by Donald Armstrong. In this photo you can see the blood around the lower jaw and dribbling down the chest of the animal.

Kate and New England Aquarium Veterinarian Dr. Julie Cavin took a team down to assess the animal and determined that it did need to be collected. They collected it and performed a physical exam, including blood collection and analysis. It was difficult to determine the source of the blood since there was a significant amount of it.

The seal was kenneled after the exam and transported to the University of New England (UNE) Marine Animal Rehabilitation Center. The seal will undergo a series of diagnostics over the next several says to determine the cause of the wounds and its overall health. Our network partners at UNE will have their work cut out for them with this case. We'll keep you posted on her condition (yes it is a little female).

- Connie

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Acadia as she is removed from her rehabilitation tank for treatment.

At least twice a week we bring out Acadia, the loggerhead sea turtle, for treatments. She has some superficial skin lesions on her leading edge of the front flippers. This is often seen in cold-stunned sea turtles after they are returned to their proper temperature.

Some of the skin sloughed off and under microscopic examination we noticed some bacterial rods. This finding prompting the veterinarians to start her on an antibiotic. Her blood work also still shows some minor anemia so we also have been giving her a shot of iron as well.