Poppy was released Dec. 19 at Melbourne Beach.

It’s time to celebrate a sea turtle release! Poppy the juvenile green sea turtle headed home to the ocean after 11 months of rehabilitation at our Sea Turtle Healing Center.  

Sea Turtle Preservation Society brought Poppy to us after they found the turtle struggling on the surface of the water near the dock of the Sebastian Saltwater Marina Restaurant.  

Poppy’s release has been a long time coming!

The little turtle was rushed to our Healing Center, where our tests showed that Poppy was suffering from severe anemia and hypoproteinemia, or low protein levels in the blood. It was crunch time for our veterinary team—we had no time to waste.  

The team quickly performed an emergency blood transfusion using blood from McNubbins, our first official Bowen Aquarium resident. Poppy is one of four sick turtle patients McNubbins donated blood to during her time at our Healing Center. 

In the end, the transfusion was successful! 

Friends and family of Brevard Zoo staff gathered to say goodbye to Poppy!

Poppy slowly recovered, gaining their strength back with antibiotics, a well-rounded diet and nutritional supplements. They also took a liking to “itchies,” an enrichment term our team uses to describe a turtle scratching their shell on PVC enrichment made by volunteers.  

“Poppy is a shy turtle, but they loved their enrichments,” said Sea Turtle Healing Center Coordinator Jess Patterson. “If you quietly walked up to their pool, you would catch them swaying back and forth under an enrichment item, scratching their carapace.” 

Aside from the initial ailments Poppy arrived with, they also came in with fibropapillomatosis (FP), a disease that causes external and internal tumors to form along a turtle’s body. This disease can easily inhibit a turtle’s ability to swim, so our team made sure to swiftly remove all of Poppy’s tumors through multiple surgeries. Now, Poppy is all healed! 

Poppy receives a checkup from our veterinary team.

“Poppy was difficult case,” Jess said. “They kept us on our toes, and we learned a lot along the way!”  

Though it’s been a long journey to recovery, it was time to bid our goodbyes as we sent the little turtle back to the ocean. Bon voyage and happy swimming, Poppy!