Loggerhead turtles Josie, Petunia, healthy at last, return to sea as hundreds cheer them on

JUNO BEACH — Thursday was a perfect morning for healthy sea turtles to travel home.

Under a bright blue sky dotted with just a few cotton-ball clouds, dozens of people gathered to cheer on loggerhead sea turtles Josie and Petunia as Loggerhead Marinelife Center released them back to the ocean.

“This is really the culmination of one of our main focuses at Loggerhead Marinelife Center, which is sea turtle rehabilitation,” said Andy Dehart, Loggerhead's president and CEO.

While the center, which this year celebrates its 40th anniversary, has a number of programs, Loggerhead is best known for being a sea turtle hospital, he said.

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All of the medical staff members “put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into bringing these animals in, who often come in in terrible condition, rehabilitating them and then allowing this healing process to happen at our facility, to the point that we can get them back in the ocean, which is where we truly believe they belong,” Dehart said.

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This was one of about two dozen sea turtle releases the center has done since August, when Loggerhead regained its permits to care for injured sea turtles after a series of staffing and water-quality issues that kept turtles out of the hospital’s care for about five months.

Not all releases are open to the public, Dehart said, and some have to happen farther from the center and closer to where the turtles were rescued, based on guidelines from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Both Dehart and Heather Barron, Loggerhead’s chief science officer and veterinarian, joined the center last July.

“We had our permits back in place within a month, and we had our first turtle back within a month,” he said.

Moments like Thursday morning’s release are representative of the quality of care provided by Loggerhead’s staff, Dehart said, noting the facility’s $26 million renovation that was completed last year.

“To see it grow into its expanded campus and to still have community-based events like these public releases, these are special not just for the patients going back to the ocean and our staff, but we do this because we want people to see how we’re affecting the ocean,” Dehart said.

“Whether that be through contact with speedboats, whether that be through marine debris and entanglement, or even plastic ingestion. And each one of these releases is a chance to tell the individual stories that our patients face.”

Both turtles were 'good patients' during stints at Loggerhead

The event was especially notable for the release of Josie, who is missing her left front limb. Inwater Research Group, based in Jensen Beach, brought Josie to Loggerhead on April 5.

“She was very thin and weak and debilitated, a little anemic,” said Barron. “She also had a lot of GI (gastrointestinal) parasites. So we dewormed her and then spent some time fattening her back up.”

There is evidence that sea turtles can live for years with only three limbs, Barron said. While it may be harder for them to nest, Josie may have more success because loggerheads mostly use their back limbs for nesting, and she still has a bit of her front left limb to help, she said.

Inwater also brought Petunia to Loggerhead. She arrived May 6 with a shoulder wound, possibly from a boat, Barron said.

Josie and Petunia were good patients, she said. “They ate right away. They took their medicines just like they were supposed to,” Barron said. “They’ve both been fairly easy.”

Scores of people gathered on beach to watch turtles' trek into the waves

For Barron, seeing the turtles return to the ocean is an amazing experience.

“I love to take pictures of this and send it to all my veterinary colleagues,” she said, smiling. “I’m like, ‘This is the view from my office window today.’ So, it’s not too shabby. It’s a hard job but somebody’s got to do it, right?”

Standing among those in the crowd were Derrylyn Gorski of Bethany, Conn., and her granddaughter, 11-year-old Josey Rogers of Ballston Spa, N.Y.

The pair are in Palm Beach County for a family reunion, staying with Gorski’s sister Darlene Staley, who lives just up Ocean Drive in the Beachcomber.

“Whenever I bring a grandkid down, this is one of the stops,” Gorski said of Loggerhead. It was during a visit to the center this week that they saw the news about Josie and Petunia’s release.

Josey was especially excited to see that one of the turtles shares her name. “I felt really happy,” she said. “Nothing’s ever named Josey.”

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Loggerhead Marinelife Center releases turtles Josie, Petunia after rehab