If you are familiar with our sea turtle rehabilitation work at Loggerhead Marinelife Center, you know that our team treats sea turtle patients with a variety of injuries and illnesses, from entanglement, predator wounds and boat strike injuries to fibropapillomatosis and infections. What you may not know is that in addition to our veterinary team caring for these patients, sometimes our patients can help each other, in the form of blood transfusions!
Sea turtles can have blood transfusions to help improve certain health conditions, but unlike us, the blood can’t be banked for more than 36 hours, relying on the right match being present at the right time. That “right match” needs to ideally be the same species, healthy, and compatible on cross-match testing to prevent a transfusion reaction.
Such was the case in 2024 with Falafel, a subadult loggerhead sea turtle who came to us at LMC on May 24, 2024 after being found floating near Jensen Beach with severe front flipper injury and exposed bone, as well as a fishing hook in the mouth. Falafel underwent multiple procedures during their first month at LMC, to remove the fishing hook and to amputate the severely damaged front flipper. After surgery, the veterinary team carefully monitored Falafel’s recovery and decided blood transfusions could help Falafel. So, the hunt for a match began.
Luckily, at that time the hospital had another loggerhead patient in their care who was well on the road to recovery. Scout was an adult loggerhead sea turtle who came in April 27, 2024 with a partially healed boat strike injury to his shell. By the time Falafel needed a transfusion, in late June, Scout was healing nicely and was healthy enough to be a candidate to donate blood. The team checked and cross-matched to make sure that Scout was a viable blood donor, and once their tests confirmed the match, they proceeded with the transfusion. Blood donor sea turtles give 1% of their body weight and the recipient receives 2%, so because Scout was a much larger adult turtle, weighing 249 lbs, he was able to donate up to 1,130 ml of blood to Falafel, who needed 908 ml of blood.
The blood transfusion was successful, and Falafel ended up receiving two blood transfusions from Scout as part of treatment. Both turtles made full recoveries and were released. Scout was released on July 18, 2024 and Falafel was released later in December, with a tracking tag to follow their journey. You can see Falafel’s path here.
The successful blood transfusions were crucial on Falafel’s road to recovery, and were also part of a paper that LMC’s Lead Veterinarian Dr Heather Barron contributed to regarding sea turtle blood transfusions. Our team couldn’t perform this kind of cutting-edge veterinary care without support of guests and donors who fund our work.