Brevard Zoo’s Loggerhead Sea Turtle ‘Zoo Base’ to be Released Wednesday at Lori Wilson Park in Cocoa Beach
By Space Coast Daily // October 18, 2023
The release will take place rain or shin
BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – It’s finally time to say goodbye to Zoo Base, the loggerhead sea turtle who has been a patient at the Brevard Zoo’s Sea Turtle Healing Center for 15 months.
Zoo Base will be released on Wednesday, October 18 at 4 p.m. at Lori Wilson Park in Cocoa Beach.
The community is welcome to attend.
The release will take place rain or shine, and it’s always a good idea to arrive at the park early to snag your parking and beach spots.
In July 2022, Zoo Base was found off of Cocoa Beach floating, lethargic and unable to dive. This sea turtle had fishing line trailing out of their mouth.
X-rays at the Healing Center later showed that Zoo Base had two large fishing hooks in their esophagus.
The hooks were too far into the esophagus to remove them through the mouth, so the veterinary team had to perform surgery to remove them. The hook had also perforated through the esophagus and the bronchus of a lung, leaking air into the body cavity. This trapped air made Zoo Base buoyant.
The Zoo veterinary team was also concerned Zoo Base had ingested fishing line as well, so an emergency exploratory surgery was performed to remove any line from the GI if it was present, but none was found.
The Healing Center team saw Zoo Base through these surgeries and the complications that followed, and now it’s time to send this loggerhead home!
Zoo Base was named in honor of the hard-working front office staff who has taken some turtle calls for them by worried beach goers, looking for guidance on sea turtle stranding protocols.
This loggerhead will be remembered for watching the zoo volunteers and other turtle patients through the window in their pool!
