Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Center
The Florida Aquarium’s Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Center, completed in 2019, is a 19,000 square-foot facility that houses four rehabilitation pools, a deep-dive foraging pool and a state-of-the-art veterinary suite. These resources maximize our capability and capacity to respond to increasing sea turtle rescue and rehabilitation needs, conduct vital health research to improve sea turtle care and husbandry techniques and increase the number of sea turtles returned to their natural habitat.
Rehabilitation Pools
Serving as a distinguished leader in sea turtle rehabilitation, our facility maintains four independently filtered rehabilitation pools that can be subdivided to house multiple animals. This design provides an important ability to care for sea turtles in various stages of rehabilitation. Each pool has underwater windows which allow guests to view the animals in our care.
Veterinary Suite
We consistently provide excellent husbandry care for our animals. Sea turtles become stranded for a variety of medical reasons, and our facility has a fully outfitted veterinary hospital to provide state-of-the-art diagnostic and treatment technologies to aid in their recovery. The hospital is surrounded on two sides with floor-to-ceiling glass panels to allow guests to view animal care procedures from the exterior deck.
Deep-Dive Foraging Pool
Before rehabilitated sea turtles can be released, several pre-release criteria must be met. Unfortunately, the animal’s ability to forage for live food at any significant depth is often difficult to ascertain. To meet this need, a one-of-a-kind deep-dive foraging pool, complete with underwater viewing, was constructed. Release candidates must be able to forage at depth before release, and the pool is offered for use to turtles rehabilitated at other facilities.