Rescued olive ridley sea turtle is too buoyant
to be able to dive for food but experts hope to change that with decompression
treatment
Reuters
Friday 1 April
2016 05.41 BSTLast modified on Friday 1 April 201623.45 BST
Vets have put a rescued sea turtle into
a hyperbaric chamber, usually used to treat human divers suffering the
bends, in a bid to remove gas bubbles in its body that stop it diving.
Experts from Seattle will test the buoyancy of
Tucker the 20-year-old endangered olive ridley sea turtle on Friday in the hope
that they can one day release him back into the ocean.
The 32kg animal was found in December
clinging to life along the coast of Oregon ,
far from his species’ usual warm-water habitat off southern California
and Mexico
He has recovered from pneumonia and other
complications from hypothermia but still has a buoyancy issue caused by
internal gas bubbles in his body that prevent the reptile from diving or
remaining underwater.
“It’s almost like the turtle is wearing a
life preserver,” Seattle Aquarium spokesman Tim Kuniholm said on Thursday.
Aquarium vets brought Tucker to Virginia
Mason hospital on Monday for a session in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber there,
making him the first non-human patient to visit the pressurised facility and
the first sea turtle in the US
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