Welcome to our new hawksbill turtle, Mangaliso!

On the afternoon of the 30 June, the team at the Turtle Conservation Centre received a message from one of our volunteers that a turtle had been found on Melkbosstrand and was being brought in! 

The team was practised at receiving turtle hatchlings, having already admitted 604 this year, so quickly and efficiently prepared to welcome the newcomer. However, when the precious parcel from Melkbos arrived, the team was shocked to see not a loggerhead hatchling but a juvenile hawksbill turtle! This little hawkie weighed 4kg on arrival – much larger than the 100g hatchling they were expecting…

Despite being incredibly weak, the young hawksbill was in pretty good shape, so the team followed normal procedures and placed him in a freshwater bath. This helps new turtles to rehydrate after their stranding ordeal. However, Clinic Coordinator Razaan soon noticed that the turtle wasn’t lifting his head to breathe during the bath.

After close monitoring, Dr Bernice (our turtle vet) advised the team to start breathing for him using a device that simulates the movement of the lungs and maintains the flow of oxygen. The team was very concerned as they took slow, timeous breaths for this new hawkie – instead of showing signs of life, he seemed to be withering away before us.

After a few hours, the turtle was placed on oxygen for the night. The expected outcome wasn’t promising, considering that he had not taken an autonomous breath in hours. Situations like these can happen in turtle rescue when adrenalin and stress from stranding mask how weak and traumatised a new patient is. However, our team was still hopeful. They said goodnight to the newest patient and hoped that he would make it through the night.

Incredibly, the hawksbill was still alive early the next morning, despite being unresponsive and unbreathing. The team started breathing for him again and continued to do so for the next six hours. Finally, miraculously, they started to see life slowly return to this rescue: A flap of a flipper and a raised head around mid-afternoon was enough to make the turtle team cheer!

What an absolute miracle that this brave turtle managed to pull through! A miracle is an event inexplicable by natural or scientific laws, and that’s exactly what this situation was – how on earth did this little turtle survive? A new name was settled on: Mangaliso (miracle in isiXhosa).

With Mangaliso’s miraculous presence, we also think about the hundreds of turtle hatchlings that found themselves in our care after emerging from the sand in iSimangaliso Wetland Park (“the place of miracles”), travelling down the South African coastline, and stranding along the beaches of the Western Cape. That, too, is a miracle!

What a special thing to be surrounded by so many Mangalisos!