Georgia Aquarium rescues loggerhead turtles from ‘catastrophic' conditions

By Lynn Peisner

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The giant neon sombrero wasn’t the only oddity at I-95’s famous South Carolina roadside attraction, South of the Border, on Thursday.

Dr. Gregory Bossart, senior vice president and chief veterinary officer at Georgia Aquarium, laughs when he says he wishes he could have seen the look on people’s faces as four large vehicles pulled into the parking lot to divvy up 13 loggerhead sea turtles. The coffee-table-size creatures had to be hoisted out of the trucks.

“Can you imagine that picture?” he says, recalling the episode as he checks the eyes of one of the turtles that arrived in Atlanta on Thursday night for treatment. “These are endangered species. Normally, we’d meet at the beach, but we had to expedite this rescue. I made sure the drivers had copies of our permits to do this, just in case they ran into any problems. But it must have looked pretty funny to someone sitting there eating their dinner.”

For Bossart and his staff dedicated to treating these animals, the jokes end there. The turtles were found Feb. 6 in a group on a beach of Ocracoke Island, N.C. Their gastrointestinal systems stopped functioning in response to water temperatures that dipped to exceptionally low temperatures, which is creating hostile environmental conditions for wildlife in the Southeast. The water temperatures off the coast of North Carolina dipped into the low 40s.

In the past four weeks, more than 4,500 of the region’s turtles have “stranded,” a term that describes this desperate medical state that prevents the animals from entering the water. In Florida, 200 manatees have died.

“These are unprecedented mortality and morbidity rates for wildlife,” Bossart says. “In my eyes, it’s bordering on catastrophic. Whether it's being caused by man or climate change, that's for debate, but there's no question something's happening here."

Because facilities licensed to treat loggerheads near Ocracoke Island were at maximum capacity, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission drove the 13 turtles inland. There, vehicles from the Georgia Aquarium and the Georgia Sea Turtle Center in Jekyll Island split them up.

Despite the road trip, the five turtles lucky enough to end up in Atlanta will be treated better than some sick humans, thanks to the aquarium’s Quarantine and Warehouse Facility, a veritable Johns Hopkins for marine animals.

“That machine alone costs $12,000,” Bossart says, pointing to a small device that returns the results from a glucose blood test in less than five minutes. The reptiles will be under 24-hour watch and will endure a litany of exams and rehabilitation techniques that Kevin Curlee, curator of quarantine acquisitions, calls “a marathon race” to save these turtles' lives.

Loggerhead turtles are considered "threatened" by the Endangered Species Act, and they are considered "endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The turtles, which Bossart says are adolescents, are being held in five large plastic containers in shallow, warm water. Aquarium staff say a visible sign of improvement from their current status, classified as "guarded," will be to eventually see them swim in some of the warehouse’s deeper tanks. Bossart says he can’t predict how long the animals will be under the aquarium’s care. The goal is to release them back into the wild, attached with satellite tags to monitor and learn more about them.

“People won’t be able to see these animals, but that’s not why we’re doing this," Bossart says. "We have an obligation to get them back into nature, and that’s what we’re doing.”