Sorry to report that search efforts at sea have been stalled for several days due to severe weather. As a result, we have not admitted any turtles since Tuesday June 1. Search efforts will continue daily when conditions permit. It's frustrating that the weather has been so bad; it's very likely that there are more oiled turtles out there.

The 26 hospitalized turtles are doing very well.


This is the largest de-oiled turtle, a loggerhead that weighs about 120 pounds. She is eating like a champ!


Before


After

The above photos are "before and after" pictures of the flipper injury that I described yesterday. This turtle is doing well, and is swimming well today, with good use of the injured flipper.



This final picture shows an example of the oil that we are cleaning out of the throat of all of the turtles. We use cotton swabs to clean as much as we can, but it is very sticky and it's nearly impossible to get it all.

Will continue to update daily.....

Dr. Innis

Note: Dr. Innis is working with a team of vets at the Aquarium of the Americas. He will be joined shortly by the New England Aquarium's Rescue Director, Connie. As Connie explained in this previous post, only volunteers with certain qualifications are being called to help rescue animals affected by the oil spill. People often ask the Rescue Team how they can help in general. Some of those ways can be found in this post.

In addition to those options you can show your support for protecting our oceans by claiming a virtual plot of ocean and pledging to live blue on the Aquarium’s Live Blue Initiative: http://www.liveblueinitiative.org/

Thank you for reading and caring about the blue planet!