12.12.2010

Turtle Maintenance

There is a turtle pond here on island that has three sea turtles living in it. I'm not sure exactly what the story is on why we have sea turtles in captivity; I do know that the Marshallese have been known to eat sea turtles so maybe it's way to protect them, or possibly it just for our enjoyment.

I've posted about feeding them before but this week it was time for their annual checkup.

The process begins by rounding them up and getting them out of the pond and onto the grass.
 










Next step is to scrub all of the algea off of them (top and bottom). I don't think this normally a problem for the wild ones. Their heads are covered to keep them from escaping or biting. 



They are measured, weighed and their blood gets drawn. Apparently drawing a turtles blood is not an easy task. It took a few people a few tries.


That's it until next year.



1 comment:

AmyP said...

Wow! We didn't do that when I lived there ('93-'98). I sure loved visiting the turtle pond. And I always took visitors there too. Thanks for sharing these pictures. Glad to see they are so well cared for!