7 News Belize

Remembering Bubbles The Turtle
posted (December 30, 2024)
And, finally tonight, we're looking back on another of our favorite stories of the year. In May, I learnt about Bubbles the juvenile green Turtle with only two flippers but a heart as big as a whale. Here's more:

Every animal recovery and rehabilitation story - or at least those that have a happy ending - ends in the great release into the wild of the once wounded animal after it has been nursed back to health.

Our story tonight is about a juvenile green turtle with only two flippers. She's called Bubbles - and she's about the size of a frisbee, what she's lacking in propulsion - she makes up for in courage and will to survive.

And today she proved that she can manage just fine with the flippers she has. Jomarie Lanza was there for her release:

You'd be surprised at how fast and how far a green sea turtle with two flippers can get, after two months of tank time.

This is Bubbles, a 3 year old green sea turtle who was victim of nature, possibly a shark attack, and was left for dead until she was found by humans.

Today she was released back into the wild upon making a miraculous recovery, and learning to adapt to a two flipper lifestyle.

Linda Searle, Executive Director, Ecomar
"After Easter we got a call from the Belize Fisheries Department that a turtle had been rescued behind secret beach on San Pedro. So some fishermen were in the area and they saw the turtle struggling on the surface and so the fishermen they picked up this turtle and called Hol Chan they brought the turtle into Hol Chans office and then Hol Chan notified the fisheries department and then the fisheries department reached out to Ecomar because one of the things that we do is we rehabilitate sea turtles and so we received the turtle actually two months ago yesterday so we've had her for two months we've been taking care of her which includes many different aspects of you'd like I can go into what we first did with her. As soon as we revived her on April 3rd we took her up to animal medical center where we had the veterinarians up there take a look at her. She was very dehydrated she was super weak she couldn't even lift her head and you saw how energetic she was today. So we had to put her on fluids because she had not been eating she lost a lot of blood so we had to put her on antibiotics as well because you saw her wounds on her flippers they were completely healed today but when we got here two months ago they were open."

Bubbles was kept in a tank provided by the fisheries department during her rehabilitation. Her wounds were treated with antibiotics and also honey which helped her to heal rapidly down to the stump of her flipper that was severed. She's come a long way and was tweezer fed for most of her recovery. Thankfully no surgery was needed to ensure her survival

Linda Searle, Executive Director, Ecomar
"So we've been monitoring the wounds right and basically when we first got here there was a piece of bone protruding from her front flipper and one of the turtle vets we consulted with he said well the pact fell volume which is a measure of the blood has to be 20% before we can do surgery so we were keeping her and waiting for the PCV value to go from 12% up to 20% in order to do the surgery but while we waited a piece of the bone actually fell off and so then the tissue started growing over that front flipper bone that was protruding. So at that point we got another blood sample and her pact cell volume was 25.5 so based on the values of her blood chemistry and the way her workings were already healing and the tissue growing over the bones we said okay she is good to go and we can release and since she was feeding on her own and was able to swim and dive in the water column we felt she would be fine out at sea And she was"

Just a few miles away from St George's Caye this afternoon bubbles was gently let down into the water, and it didn't take long for her to catch the stride of the waves and paddled off into the emerald waters.

Linda Searle, Executive Director, Ecomar
"This release was a success , we have rehabilitated or we have tried to rehabilitate other sea turtles in the past and sadly not all of them make it. The reason people are finding stranded sea turtles is because they are sick but I find with our experience now that this is the third turtle we have rehabilitated that was attacked by a predator. Those other turtles that normally survive because there is nothing wrong with them internally they are only missing a limb or 2."

Fortunately for bubbles she did survive, and according to her caretakers it took a while for her to learn how to swim around on her own again without all four flippers.

Linda Searle, Executive Director, Ecomar
"I hope that somebody comes across her so we are actually going to put an all points bulletin out on bubbles the sea turtle and you can't miss her because most sea turtles have four flippers well bubbles only has two. Bubbles has only two flippers so we are hoping that if anyone sees her out at sea maybe a fisherman or a marine guide please let us know where you see her. When we released her at north gallow she was heading north towards St George's Caye and maybe back up to San Pedro where she was found it's hard to tell but you won't miss her when you see her."






Home | Archives | Downloads/Podcasts | Advertise | Contact Us

7 News Belize