Loggerhead!

Earlier this semester our class took a trip to the South Carolina Aquarium at Charleston Harbor. There we were taken on a behind the scenes tour of the sea turtle hospital. Out of all the field trips this was one of my absolute favorites. I had always wanted to go the to sea turtle hospital and through this class I was able to do it. While we were there I got this picture of a particularly large Loggerhead, Caretta caretta. This Loggerhead was a female. She sustained a major injury to her front right flipper and therefore has trouble swimming. She swims mostly in wide circles around and around her small tank. If you look closely at the picture you can actually see the her front right flipper is kept in closer association with her body and is a bit smaller than her left flipper. I asked one of the people who worked in the sea turtle hospital about her progress since her admittance. She said that the turtle has been given extensive physical therapy and has made some progress. For physical therapy they typically tape down her "good" flipper, therefore forcing her to use the weak flipper to swim.

This turtle is an adult and was about 3 to 4 feet long. Obviously I did not see this turtle in her natural habitat, but a typical natural habitat for Loggerheads is tropical marine waters. They could be found on beaches, bays, or far at sea. They are known to nest regularly on beaches of the Carolinas. Their typical range is in the Western Atlantic from the Canadian Maritime Provinces all the way south to Argentina. This particular Loggerhead was found on a beach near Charleston, S.C. As far as natural history goes Loggerheads nest and lay eggs on beaches. Sometime later those eggs hatch into small versions of adult Loggerheads, and the young claw their way to the water. However, most of the hatch-lings do not survive to adulthood.
This was a great field trip. I was thrilled to see a Loggerhead so close!
Bess Pierce, Charleston S.C.