Help Meeka the giant loggerhead turtle

Hi,

We are the Dolphin Discovery Centre Bunbury in Western Australia. As an environmental charity we are heavily involved in sea turtle rescue and rehabilitation. Currently we care for 'Meeka' a giant female loggerhead turtle and with your help we want to make here healthy again to release her back into wild. This is her story:

‘Meeka’ is getting better and stronger, but she needed a lot of help on her road to recovery. We are glad to be able to provide this care through our rescue and rehabilitation facilities for sea turtles here at the Dolphin Discovery Centre in the @cityofbunbury. Being part of this wonderful journey helping an endangered species to survive is what our work is all about but with it came huge challenges for us as a small environmental charity.

The 50–80-year-old female loggerhead turtle was initially found floating sick in Geographe Bay off the Dunsborough coast. She couldn’t dive to feed and protect herself from predators, was hypothermic, and in poor health. Transported to Bunbury she received immediate care and vet assessments. But our tanks and infrastructure are setup for baby rescue turtles weighing a few hundred grams, not an 80kg mature adult turtle. The immediate search for bigger and more suitable equipment began but wasn’t easy. The initial setup costs for a 9500-liter tank in which Meeka could swim and dive with the necessary filter, heating, and maintenance systems came in at a cost of over $10,000 to our organization.

Within days of having Meeka in our care we could see a change in her behavior and condition. The moment she started eating and passing food our experts knew that the treatment was working. From examination it became apparent that Meeka ingested a lot of shellfish lately which seemed to have blocked up a lot of her digestive track and was of poor nutrition. Now that her condition improves steadily it has however created another problem, Meeka is very hungry. She eats 2,5kg of squid per day, the water she lives in needs constant monitoring, treatment, filtration, and replacement with fresh seawater that needs to be pumped up from Koombana Bay. Currently we spend $425 per day on making Meeka better.

The costs deplete the reserves of our Environment Fund in a rapid pace. Can you please help us raise the necessary funds to bring Meeka back to full health and then release her back into the wild where she can lay more eggs to keep this species alive?

Any wildlife rescue and rehabilitation are under the supervision and guidelines of Parks and Wildlife Service WA (DBCA). The scientific protocol foresees the release of Meeka into the same habitat she was found in which would be Geographe Bay. This will happen as soon as she has fully recovered from poor health to give her the best chance of survival. We would love to be able to continue with our work in rescuing and rehabilitating these endangered species as they are an important part of our wildlife and marine environment. With your donation to our Environment Fund we can keep helping wildlife. All donations of $2 and above are tax deductible.

We would like to thank all supporters, our volunteers, and staff that helped with Meeka’s rehabilitation so far and any future donations are greatly appreciated!