Florida Keys Aquarium Full Tour
Florida Keys Aquarium Full Tour
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TravelTranscript
00:00So again, ever since 1973, sea turtles have not been harvested.
00:20Now, if you look at Rocky, you'll see that he has some accessories on his shell.
00:26So in 1999, Rocky was actually hit by a boat.
00:30And that propeller cracked his shell open.
00:33Now, sea turtles have cartilage under their shell that's kind of like a sponge.
00:37It's super porous.
00:39And when it scars, it actually traps air.
00:42So Rocky has a permanent accumulation of air under his shell in the form of microbubbles.
00:49And there is nothing that we can do to release that air.
00:52And it's actually a very common injury with sea turtles and boat strikes.
00:57Now, any sea turtle with this accumulation of air in their shell is deemed automatically non-releasable
01:03because they are a drowning hazard.
01:06So when Rocky was found, his rear end was at the surface, and his head was straight down.
01:11So he couldn't come up to breathe air, and he could not dive down to the seafloor to stay safe,
01:16to take a nap, or to eat.
01:19Now, luckily enough for Rocky, the person who hit him is the person who called it in.
01:26So we were able to get to him immediately.
01:29But now, he was a drowning hazard.
01:32So we needed to add some things on his shell to help him swim.
01:35So that black thing towards his head on his shoulder, that is a float.
01:40It had a life jacket material.
01:42And if you see towards his rear end, he does have a dive weight.
01:45So that float and that weight help counteract all the air under his shell,
01:49so he can swim horizontally, he can come up to the surface to breathe air,
01:53and he can dive down to the seafloor to take his little naps.
01:57Now, Rocky, we're guessing, is around 35 years old, because he finally is reaching maturity.
02:05Now, what's really interesting about marine sea turtles is that they can get maturity from 30 to 35,
02:11and their diet changes.
02:13So they go from a high-protein-based diet, like fish and squid and crabs,
02:18and then once they hit maturity, they transition solely to those greens,
02:23a type of sea grass called turtle grass.
02:25So right now, Rocky is slowly starting to reject all of the high-protein food that we give him,
02:32and he's starting to ask for his greens.
02:34So because of that, we do know that Rocky is in that 30- to 35-year range.
02:40If he was not eating this yet, we would not know how old he is,
02:45because it is pretty much impossible to age a sea turtle unless you were there for the hatch date,
02:51unless they give us cues like this, like transitioning into maturity.
02:57Now, I do have one more sea turtle that I want to introduce to you guys,
03:02and she is going to be outside through these glass doors.
03:06Those next to the entrance, those are confiscated sea turtle items
03:11from people who were in different countries.
03:14They purchased them, and then they tried to come back into the U.S.,
03:17and they all got confiscated at the border.
03:20Now, even though sea turtles are federally protected here in the U.S.,
03:25they are not protected worldwide.
03:27So you can still find sea turtle items all over the world,
03:30but we just highly recommend, if you don't want to have an issue at the border,
03:34just please try to refrain from buying those sea turtle products.
03:42Now, out here, we have Lola.
03:45Lola is taking on full swims right now,
03:48and she is the rarest species of sea turtle on the planet.
03:52She is called a Kemp's Ridley.
03:54So if you look at her, you'll see that she's a lot smaller than both Hector and Rocky,
04:00and that is just her species.
04:03So she's around 70 pounds right now.
04:05She's going to max out at around 100.
04:08So she does have a little more ground to go, but that is essentially her size.
04:13Now, Lola encountered two factors that made us be able to be the people that have her.
04:23So when she was around three months old,
04:25if you guys look over on this book with a sign right here,
04:29you'll see a little picture of a baby sea turtle.
04:31That is actually Lola.
04:33So Lola was this size, and the chips on her feet are super tiny.
04:37She was three months old.
04:39She had a really long life of predators,
04:42and if you're a really long life of predator, you can still be released.
04:46That's not an issue.
04:47So when she was three months old, we did take her in.
04:50She was in a rehab for around eight months,
04:53and then she was released with a whole bunch of other sea turtles
04:56because of her safety in numbers.
04:58However, yes, she was in the same spot 24 hours later,
05:03but this time had her pillow wrapped over the fishing line.
05:06Miss Lola.
05:08So unfortunately, that fishing line was wrapped around her so tightly
05:13that we did have to amputate it in order to save her.
05:16Now, what's interesting about Lola is because she did have an injury when she was super young.
05:21She isn't growing up thinking that.
05:23That's just totally normal.
05:24She's not thinking anything else of it.
05:27And right now, she's 20.
05:29Her birthday is in April, and we know Lola's exact age
05:32because we know when her hatchday was,
05:34and she was only three months old when we found her.
05:37So Lola's species depends completely.
05:40They are the rarest species of sea turtle.
05:42They are critically endangered.
05:44In 1950, there was 42,000 nesting females.
05:49By 1990, there was only 200 nesting females.
05:53So their numbers dropped quite dramatically,
05:56and that's because these guys nest during the day.
05:59So all other species of sea turtles,
06:01they use the color of darkness to stay safe from predators when they nest.
06:05However, herpes ridley's, they nest during the day,
06:08and all other females would storm the beach at the same time and overwhelm predators.
06:14Now, poachers also caught on to that,
06:17and so for this species, it was really easy to find their nests
06:21because they nest during the day.
06:23And people wanted to find their eggs to sell on the market,
06:28and so their numbers were dropping very, very dramatically.
06:32Now, the thing about sea turtles is one out of 1,000 eggs
06:36reached adulthood to then have their own nest.
06:40So if Lola was out in the wild right now,
06:43she would need to lay 100 eggs for 10 years straight
06:47in order to have one of those eggs finally reach adulthood
06:52to then come back to the beach to have their own baby.
06:55So one out of 1,000 sea turtles reach adulthood.
06:58Now, because Lola's flipper was amputated, she has a nice, clean nub.
07:05So have you guys heard of the story from Winter the Doll?
07:08Dr. Kevin Carroll actually created it.
07:11Dr. Kevin Carroll owns the Hangar Clinic,
07:14and they actually make all the prosthetics for our vets and people.
07:19And so they were like, let's try sea turtles.
07:22And so they made Lola's newest version,
07:25and then they decided that it was now time for Rocky to receive a prosthetic.
07:30So this is Rocky's prosthetic.
07:32It is exactly the same.
07:34I'm just going to stop the wave while it's playing.
07:36Yeah, and they even scan their nubs so it's literally a perfect snug fit.
07:41Like, it's so cool.
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