The Turtle Hospital

At the Turtle Hospital they tell about how you can help the turtles. Some turtles get bubble butt and are permanent residents. Bubble butt means that they get air in the bottom and can’t dive correctly. To help them dive, some have weights on their shells. The weights can fall off as their shells grow so they have to live at the hospital. Turtle shells always grow even when they are mature. One turtle broke their examination table. A leather back turtle can dive deeper than a whale because of its leather shell. The leather shell condenses like an ear. Turtles with a hard shell, like loggerheads, would break when they get that deep. The baby loggerheads shell is pointed when they are young. There is also a turtle ambulance. The surgeries used to happen in the hotel rooms where the worker live 24- 7. Then they bought the neighboring building so they could do surgeries there. It used to be a clubhouse. The pool to the hotel is now a tank for all the turtles but they also have big turtle tanks up on a deck so when there is a hurricane, the turtles go there.

Here are some up close pictures of a temporary weight on a turtle and a more semi-permanent weight.

The black circle is the weight.