Long Beach aquarium doubles capacity to care for injured sea turtles, like ‘Porkchop’

The hunk of romaine was an easy choice for Porkchop and his three wings.

On a rainy day last week, a green sea turtle pumped its limbs and extended its mouth to nibble on a lettuce leaf floating on top of a tank at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. This is where he has been preparing since the beginning of March, when he arrived with a hook in his throat and a dead fin from fishing with a choked bait.

The 85-pound turtle earned a nickname from aquarium staff when it began eating immediately after its fin was cut, and its enthusiasm for the grub hasn’t waned.

“He looks really good from what I see from the window,” said Dr. Lance Adams, director of zoology at the zoo, looks at her through the observation deck. “Maybe she’s not that pretty anymore, but she’s not.”

Starting Wednesday, aquarium visitors will be able to see Porkchop — and other sea turtles — being rehabilitated with the opening of a new facility that includes an estimated 4,000-gallon tank.

The aquarium has been caring for sick sea turtles for more than a quarter of a century, but this is the first time the public has been able to see the work being done. Workers often help turtles that have swallowed plastic, been hit by boats, stuck in places they can’t get out of, or, like Porkchop, entangled in fishing gear.

“The aquarium has a good reputation as a community center [and a place] to bring children to get education and learning,” said aquarium President and Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Flocken.

Porkchop will only spend a short time in the light. Soon, he will be released back to the San Gabriel River, where he was found and where his kind live – a place where salt and fresh water come together. (Yes, sea turtles live in LA County.)

“Turtles are great healers,” Adams said. “They only take a moment.”

Jeffrey Flocken, president and CEO of the Aquarium of the Pacific, looks at Porkchop, who was rescued in March.

Of course, the race is slow and steady. But there’s a biological reason: Sea turtles are cold-blooded, and they don’t cool down as quickly as animals with warm blood pumping through their veins.

The downside is that they can stay in a nursing home for a period of time. If the turtle is in trouble and the aquarium is full, it should go somewhere else. In Southern California, the aquarium is one of two places with a dedicated turtle rehabilitation area (the other is SeaWorld San Diego).

With the new rehabilitation facility, the aquarium went from being able to treat one or two turtles at a time to four. That coincides with an increase in calls to help turtles after 2016, the year of the ocean heat wave, called “The Blob,” according to Flocken.

Part of the reason for the increase may be a mismatch in awareness. In 2012, volunteers began monitoring the Eastern Pacific green sea turtles that live along the San Gabriel River, in the Long Beach-Seal Beach area, keeping an eye on the green behemoths that can grow up to 500 pounds and live more than 80 years. More than 100 turtles have been recorded there, and their numbers are increasing. They forage in Southern California but feed and breed on the sandy beaches of central Mexico.

“It’s really cool that we have these local animals that you wouldn’t think of here in Southern California,” said Cassandra Davis, director of volunteer services for the Aquarium of the Pacific.

With one front flipper missing, Porkchop may not be able to move fast. But experts say turtles don’t rely on speed to protect themselves, and his chances in the wild are still good.

It was a volunteer who spotted Porkchop, officially known as CM2502. A fishing line was tied around his right hand and entered his mouth. He was also linked to waste – clothes, algae, plastic.

When she went for air, aquarium worker Aaron Hovis jumped in and grabbed her. Once freed from the trash, it was loaded onto a raft and brought into the water.

90 percent of his wings were necrotic, and veterinary staff quickly removed the dead tissue. An X-ray confirmed that there was a hook in his mouth.

Not long after, he performed other procedures: one to amputate his damaged organ and another to cut his neck to remove a fishing hook that had migrated to the tissue outside his esophagus. Because of all the stress, he shed many of the outer scales of his shell, revealing the soft ones underneath.

Lance Adams checks out the aquarium’s new sea turtle rehabilitation tank before it opens to the public.

Porkchop has endured in its wombs. The 15- to 20-year-old tortoise’s blood work, diet, behavior, weight and X-rays have all been “normal,” according to Adams.

Even at the bottom of the flipper, he is expected to be able to manage in the field. Speed ​​is not a turtle’s strength and it is not what keeps it safe; their tough exterior.

He could go home in just two weeks.

“It’s going to be great to see him back in the wild but then I’m going to worry about him forever – I’m going to be crazy again, or something,” Adams said. “I hope he decides to swim back to Mexico and live there with less people.”