There’s a cause for “shell-ebration” at Sea Life on the Sunshine Coast. Their latest patient a Green Sea Turtle has just been released after several weeks in rehab.

Brigitte O’Brien reports.

TRANSCRIPT

Meet Christine.

The adult green sea turtle was found injured on a Sunshine Coast beach two months ago.

In a stroke of turtle-y good luck for the sea creature her rescuer was a volunteer from a local Turtle Care group.

Christine was then taken to the rehabilitation Centre at Sea Life Mooloolaba underweight and suffering from ‘Floater Syndrome’.

Brittany, Sea Life Vet Nurse: “When she came into the centre here we also realised that she had some buoyancy issues.”

For the past 10 weeks the dedicated Sea Life team have nursed her back to health.

Brittany, Sea Life Vet Nurse: “We started her off in a smaller tank just in some shallow water just so we could better assess her. She was then started on a plain squid diet which was filled with paraffin oil as well.”

While this story has a happy ending, not all turtles are so lucky.

Facing a number of threats in the wild.

With boat strikes and plastic entanglement the main causes of harm.

But for now Christine’s rehabilitation journey has now come to an end.

And there was no looking back as she headed to freedom.

Brigitte O’Brien, QUT News.