Grant: 25-033R
Project Title: Sea Turtle Surgery Support
Project Manager: Heather Barron
Organization: Loggerhead Marinelife Center (Non-Profit Organization)
Grant Amount: $11,550.00
Completion Date:
Summary: The Rehabilitation Department at Loggerhead Marinelife Center (LMC) treats over 200 juvenile to adult sea turtle patients and thousands of hatchlings annually. LMC has a large campus that expanded in 2022, doubling its capacity to accept patients, including those with fibropapillomatosis. LMC responds to both live and dead sea turtle strandings across 150 miles of Florida's east coast, performs necropsies, and assists Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission with stranding- and rehabilitation-related activities. LMC also performs over 100 surgical procedures annually. Through this project, LMC will improve surgical care for sea turtle patients. This includes a new surgical table as LMC's table is designed for small animals and is not of sufficient size for larger adult sea turtles. It also cannot handle the weight and thus some features on our current table are now broken, such as the ability for the surgeon to raise and lower the table.
Results: