How a Chula Vista loggerhead sea turtle was saved by company’s unique wetsuit
When Sapphire arrived at Chula Vista’s Living Coast Discovery Center in 2014, the loggerhead sea turtle had some baggage. Now, she has her own wetsuit. So let’s dive into her story, shall we?
It starts in Marathon, Fla., when Sapphire was taken to the Turtle Hospital after being hit by a boat in the Florida Keys. The impact left her with a large crack across her rear shell, blindness in her right eye and partial paralysis in her rear flippers. She also had a serious buoyancy imbalance caused by gas trapped under her shell, which made it difficult for her to submerge to sleep and eat.
All of this made Sapphire a bad candidate for being released back into the wild, so she was flown to San Diego to make her home at Living Coast, the educational zoo and aquarium within the National Wildlife Refuge on the Sweetwater Marsh.
“Boat strikes are a very common (source of ) injury for sea turtles in the wild. You can see where the rudder of the boat hit
her, and you can see the large crack in her shell where she had this disruption,” animal care specialist Aiyana Reisman said of the sea turtle, who is estimated to be between 19 and 25 years old.
With the help of marine weights that were glued to the back of her shell, Sapphire had the buoyancy she needed to live a proper seaturtle life. She made herself at home in Living Coast’s shark and ray exhibit, endearing herself to visitors with her habit of floating in
a vertical “handstand” position. Using squid as positive reinforcement, the staff trained Sapphire to swim over to a buoy, where longtime veterinarian Dr. Todd Cecil could give her regular health checks and keep an eye on her multiple injuries.
But last spring, after six years of relative stability, Sapphire’s buoyancy problems returned. And they were more complicated this time.