COURTESY OF THE NEW ENGLAND AQUARIUM: Rescued green sea turtle about to enter CT scanner at Massachusetts Veterinary Referral Hospital in Woburn.
QUINCY – Researchers say a cold stunned sea turtle rescued last week is lucky to have even made it to Cape Cod.
The 2 to 3-year-old green sea turtle was found to only have one lung.
Staff at the New England Aquarium’s sea turtle hospital in Quincy discovered an irregularity while checking for pneumonia after slowly warming the marine creature’s body over several days.
An x-ray was taken to check for pneumonia with results looking odd and inconclusive.
Aquarium staff then attempted to check the turtle’s lungs directly. A scope went down the left side of the airway cleanly but when it was inserted down the right side it could not get past the throat area.
Researchers could not find an obstruction or tissue inflammation and would require a better image.
The turtle, who has not been named yet, was taken to the Massachusetts Veterinary Referral Hospital in Woburn for a CT scan.
The scan revealed the lack of a right lung, which is an extremely rare condition in a vertebrate.
Sea turtle biologists that only one of every 1,000 hatchlings on a tropical beach live to adulthood.
Aquarium researchers said the juvenile had high odds against making it to this life stage.
The turtle has a good prognosis and researchers are hopeful it will eventually be released back into the ocean.
The annual stranding season on Cape Cod is off to a slow start. The Aquarium’s turtle hospital has only 12 patients so far, but Thanksgiving week is often the busiest for volunteers and staff to find cold-stunned turtles on area beaches.
Aquarium staff said the weekend’s cold temperatures and high winds may wash ashore a larger number of turtles.
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