Depending on the time of year and the turtle, every now and again the permanent residents are pulled out for scrubbing. The 11 permanent resident turtles live in the 100,000 gallon salt water pool and over time can get pretty dirty!

You would think Bubble Butt would be used to the routine by now! But he still hates getting a bath.

In the wild, sea turtles and other animals will visit ‘cleaning stations’ to be cleaned of parasites and algae that grow on the turtle’s body. Shrimp and many different types of fish, mainly gobies and wrasses, eat growth from the shell in places such as coral reefs. No such stations exist in the salt water pool, so we have to create our own to make sure the turtles are staying clean and healthy. The turtles in our care also get dirty because they don’t move as fast as the turtles that are out in the ocean. Those turtle’s fast movements in the sea helps to reduce the amount of algae that grows on them.

Here comes Kent!

Many turtles will flap and try to get away during their scrubbing, but some turtles, like Coastie, will wiggle their back end back and forth which tells us that they like it!

OD all cleaned up!