An endangered sea turtle that washed ashore on the Oregon coast during a thunderstorm last week is recovering. The Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport is caring for the turtle.
The Olive Ridley turtle warmed to 68 degrees as of Wednesday — up 11 degrees from when she arrived at the aquarium’s rehabilitation unit. Aquarium spokeswoman Erin Miller says the turtle’s temperature must reach 75 degrees before she can leave triage. Miller says the turtle, nicknamed “Lightning” showed improvement when she was moved to a deeper pool.
Miller: “They put her in there and she immediately started exploring her new environment. She has an air bubble trapped under her shell, which is a common ailment for stranded sea turtles, so she floats at the top of the water but she had the strength to swim down and dive underneath the water’s surface.” Lightning has opened her right eye, but it’s badly damaged. She has yet to open her other eye. Timothy Ebarb of Pacific City found Lightning last Thursday. He stayed with the turtle for more than two hours while awaiting help.
Skinny will get top billing Monday at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport.
And why shouldn’t she. It’s not very often that a harbor seal reaches the age of 40 and Monday, June 1, is the celebration of her birthday.
Skinny is the oldest harbor seal in the Northwest, and the third oldest in the United States, according to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which keeps track of such things for accredited members. The average lifespan of female harbor seals is 25 to 30 years.
The Oregon Coast Aquarium will celebrate its golden girl with a birthday party June 1 in seal style. Fish filled ice cakes and piles of ice cubes to munch and lounge on will be on the menu. Entertainment will include enrichment activities like Kong toys stuffed with fishy snacks.
Skinny has been a part of the Oregon Coast Aquarium family from the beginning. She was found starving and orphaned as a pup on a beach in Everett, Wash., on June 1, 1975. She was deemed non-releasable and moved to a long term home at the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Tacoma. She later moved with a few of her exhibit mates to Newport just before the Aquarium opened in May 1992.
In her prime, Skinny was the dominant harbor seal in the Aquarium’s exhibit. She would often try to swipe fish other seals dropped, especially if it was her favorite food – herring.
She lost interest in maintaining the top spot when she started to lose her sight. The Aquarium’s mammalogists noticed the change, and trained her to respond to tactile, rather than the visual cues.
Despite her loss of eyesight, Skinny continues to learn new behaviors. Her most recent achievement is a high energy exercise oriented activity called a “tail walk.” When cued, Skinny will pop vertically out of the water to her middle, and then use her tail to waddle backwards in that upright position.
Aquarium visitors that wish to spot Skinny in the Pinniped Exhibit should look for her silver coat speckled with black spots and her surprised expression. “The easiest way to spot her is by her big eyes and how she holds her whiskers forward to help her feel her way around the exhibit,” said Brittany Blades, a mammalogist at the Aquarium, in a statement released by the Aquarium.
The Oregon Coast Aquarium is dedicated to the highest quality aquatic and marine science programs for recreation and education so that the public better understands, cherishes, and conserves the world’s natural marine and coastal resources. An accredited Association of Zoos & Aquariums institution, the non-profit organization is ranked as one of the top 10 aquariums in the United States. The address is 2820 S.E. Ferry Slip Rd., South Beach, Newport, Oregon; aquarium.org, 541-867-3474.
Season of Seal Babies Again on Oregon Coast: Cause for Warnings
Published 04/16/2015
(Seaside, Oregon) – Seal pup season has arrived again on the Oregon coast, as the Seaside Aquarium and the Marine Mammal Stranding Network responded to the groups’ first harbor seal baby of the year this week.
Tiffany Boothe of Seaside Aquarium passed on these photos of the spring’s initial offering of adorableness. But it also brought cause for a warning from coastal officials.
While cute and cuddly beyond belief, you absolutely have to let these little ones alone.
Boothe said that well-meaning people sometimes think that a baby seal alone on the beach has been abandoned, but this is not the case. The mother is often nearby, watching, but will not approach with people around. If the baby seal is moved, it has no chance of reuniting with its mother.
“Mammal researches have found that most pups reunite with their mothers after appearing to be ‘abandoned’ for many hours,” Boothe said. “Well-meaning people who remove seal pups from beaches are eliminating the possibility of the pup being reunited with their mother. These people are also violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and they may face criminal and or civil penalties.
“The best thing for you to do is to keep well away from this seal pup thereby reducing stress on the pup and/or alarming its mother.”
The aquarium has dealt with some especially dim-witted members of the public in the past when it comes to harbor seal pups. One year, aquarium manager Keith Chandler had to track down a nearly newborn and finally discovered it had been taken to someone’s hotel room, where they had placed it in a bathtub.
Another example of bad behavior happened in 2007. A newborn – only a foot long – had been spotted in three different beaches just south of Cannon Beach. Numerous beach-goers picked it up and tried to put it back in the surf. This could’ve caused the pup serious harm, if these actions had somehow spooked the mother or otherwise caused the seal to get lost from her.
If it a seal pup is on the beach, Boothe said you can be sure it is resting – and probably in need of a lot of rest. She said they are like all babies: they simply need a lot of sleep.
By going near a resting pup or picking it up, you actually could get it killed. This is why when the Seaside Aquarium – or any section of the Marine Mammal Stranding Network along the coast – responds to such calls they set out “do not disturb” signs around, and maybe even rope the area off.
Anyone who observes incidents of seal pup harassment, or animals in distress, should call the Oregon State Police at 1-800-452-7888.
More photos of this seal from Boothe below.
More baby seal photos from previous years from Boothe:
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SAN DIEGO, Feb. 25 (UPI) – A sea turtle rescued in the frigid Pacific Northwest was airlifted by the Coast Guard from Oregon to the more hospitable climate of Southern California.
Solstice, an endangered olive ridley turtle rescued Dec. 21 on Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula, hitched a ride Tuesday on a Coast Guard C-130 training flight from Oregon, where she was being treated at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, to San Diego, where she will complete her rehabilitation at SeaWorld.
Evonne Mochon-Collura of the Oregon Coast Aquarium, said Solstice handled the three hours of air travel well.
“The crew was able to maintain a suitable temperature in the cargo area. [An hour into the flight,] I had the Coast Guard lift the lid. She was resting and calm and fine,” she told U-T San Diego.
Aquarium officials said Solstice was dehydrated and her body temperature was low when she was found in December. They said sea turtles usually don’t go farther north than Southern California, as they require water that’s about 70 degrees to survive, but they are sometimes lured as far north as Alaska by water currents and food supply.
Solstice is expected to complete her rehabilitation and be released into the wild during the summer.
Sea turtles have a new icon, an olive ridley turtle, dubbed “Solstice,” currently recovering at the Oregon Coast Aquarium (OCA) in Newport, Or. Found stranded on the Long Beach Peninsula on the winter solstice, hence her name, she was dehydrated and hypothermic after presumably being swept by storm currents from the warm waters of her natural habitat to the chilly waters of the Pacific Northwest coast. She is making a remarkable comeback and officials hope to release her back to the wild after several months of rehabilitation.
The Seaside Aquarium carried out the rescue but transferred her to the Oregon facility where the larger staff is better equipped and more experienced at providing the specialized care that she needs to recover. Her body temperature had fallen to 60 degrees when Samantha Milner of Ocean Park, Wa. and her boyfriend discovered the stranded sea turtle while beach combing after a storm. Normal body temperature for sea turtles is 75 degrees.
The pair suspected she may be an endangered species. Aquarium officials confirmed that olive ridley sea turtles, while more populous than green or leatherback turtles, are in fact threatened and some subspecies endangered. They emphasize that her survival and rehabilitation is critical to the continuance of the species given her reproductive potential as a relatively young female.
Olive ridley turtles tend to be smaller than other sea turtles at an average size of two to 2.5 feet in length and 80 to 110 pounds in weigh for a fully grown adult. Solstice measures 42 inches and 41.5 pounds and is considered a “sub-adult.” The characteristic olive colored heart-shaped shells give the species its name. They typically live about 50 years in the wild.
The typical range for olive ridley turtles is in the tropical seas along the southern coast of California and South America, but marine enthusiasts can spot them in the warmer regions of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Each year some sea turtles get caught up in a current that carries them further north, causing hypothermia from the unaccustomed colder waters, according to OCA spokesperson, Erin Paxton. The sea turtles take quite a battering from the stormy waves and arrive much the worse for the wear. Many do not make it out alive and finding one usually means others are nearby or on their way. A dead sea turtle was found near Fort Stevens on Christmas Eve with another showing up on Dec. 29. Marine biologists expect more.
Solstice’s care team at the aquarium has conducted tests and found no signs of infection, declaring her to be stronger than most sea turtles they have rescued in the area. Her rehab plan includes hydration baths and fluids to combat the dehydration, practice swims and a gradual restoration of her normal body temperature. So far she has gained 12 degrees while in the OCA’s care and Paxton reports that she is a “very special patient.”
Aquarium officials have high hopes that Solstice will make a full recovery after several months of treatment and rehabilitation at the Oregon aquarium. If her health continues to improve and federal authorities at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) approve her release back to the wild, the aquarium would transport her to her native warmer southern waters before attempting to let her rejoin the wild sea turtle population.
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