A juvenile Green Sea Turtle was rescued by a boater in the channel by St John’s Power Plant.

The turtle was entangled in mono filament fishing line which was wrapped around the right front flipper (causing a deep constriction wound), around the right rear flipper (which is necrotic due to cut off blood supply) and attached to a large stick that was on the river bottom. There are a number of fibropapilloma tumors on the flippers, neck, leg holes and eyes.

Venus is scheduled for surgery to have an endoscope inspection (to ensure no internal tumors are present), amputate the necrotic flipper, remove the eye tumors and remove a very large tumor by the right rear flipper. Subsequent surgery will be performed to remove the remaining tumors. It is hoped that the front right flipper can be saved.

Update Jan 08, 2009

Venus had an endoscope procedure which did not find any internal tumors! She also had tumors removed from the eyes, rear flipper amputation and removal of a large, necrotic tumor.

Update Jan 20, 2009

Dr Jen from Marathon Veterinarian Hospital performed surgery to remove the remaining external fibropapilloma tumors.

Venus will now be monitored for a year, to ensure there are no re-growths.