Turtle with severed flipper
is back in aquatic action

Question: What ever happened to the green sea turtle rescued earlier this month, whose right front flipper was amputated by fishing line?

Answer: The turtle was released into Kailua Bay yesterday, three weeks to the day after it was rescued at Yokohama Beach by beachgoers and lifeguards.

The turtle had been turned over to the National Marine Fisheries Service's turtle stranding response team.

Veterinarian Robert Morris operated on the 40-pound turtle Sept. 17 to remove the stump of bone that connected to its missing flipper, and the turtle was held for two weeks at a Kewalo Basin recovery pool while it received antibiotics. An earlier attempt at surgery was postponed when the turtle bled from the mouth because of irritation from fishing line it had swallowed.

After release yesterday, "it swam straight off," Morris said. "I'd anticipate a good outcome."

COURTESY OF GEORGE BALAZS, NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE Veterinarian Robert Morris, left, and National Marine Fisheries Service researcher Erin Siebert held a green sea turtle released at Kailua Bay yesterday. Morris amputated the turtle's useless right flipper, which had been severed by a fishing line.

The turtle now has a Fisheries Service number ID, which is implanted in rear flippers on a microchip similar to those put in pet dogs and cats. Temporary paint on its shell identifies the turtle as "4B," a fragment of that longer ID number.

"The guys at the beach when I picked him up called him Myrtle," said Cody Hooven, a research technician with the Fisheries Service's Marine Turtle Research Program.

"We just referred to the turtle as the celebrity."

In the three weeks since it was picked up, 14 other stranded turtles were reported, 11 on Oahu and three on the Big Island, Hooven said. Of the six that were alive, four were released after getting treatment for their ailments, which included fishing line entanglements and tumors, she said.

The National Marine Fisheries Service turtle stranding hot line is 983-5730 on Oahu.

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