Loggerhead (Caretta caretta)

Stranding Location: Cape Romain Bay, Cape Romain Wildlife Refuge

Arrival Date: 05/17/2007

Age: over 30 years old (adult male)

Weight: 270 lbs

Case History

The front left flipper is badly injured from fishing gear entanglement and has 3 strains of bacterial infection but the prognosis is good.

Treatment

Anitibiotic injections ($50 per every other day!), Vitamin K and B-Complex injections, pain medication, flipper therapy – hydro therapy, massage therapy, topical antibiotics.

Updates

This is the first adult male sea turtle to be treated in the Aquarium’s sea turtle hospital. He was reproductively active upon arrival.

18 June 2007: Cape Romain has been slowly losing his flipper bit by bit. Surgery is scheduled for Wednesday, June 20 to amputate. Although we are sad to have Cape lose the flipper, he will navigate just fine in the wild. There are many documentations of turtles with missing flippers migrating great distances! “Takes heart,” one collegue tells me…

Release Date

11/03/2007

Release Location

Isle of Palms, SC