Gioia

All Turtle Patients

Meet Gioia, Our First 2018 Arrival

Gioia was a juvenile Olive Ridley turtle who was found entangled in a ghost net by our friends at Bandos Resort in North Male Atoll in January 2018.

Intake Date: January 14th 2018
Length: 47.5 cm
Weight: 8.45 kg
Status: Deceased February 2018

Check out Gioia’s story in the video below

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=735256606664324

Gioia is pronounced “Joya” and means joy in Italian; our Facebook followers named her in a naming competition.

Gioia was initially taken to Marine Savers.  She transferred to us later as they determined that she required surgery. Gioia arrived in style on a sea plane! Although we say “she”, Gioia was too young for us to know the gender so could be male or female.
Gioia was recovering well from her surgery to amputate her front flipper. She initially had a great appetite and showed buoyancy improvements. Then she suddenly stopped eating. We surgically placed a feeding tube, but she was regurgitating and losing a lot of weight.  In one week she lost 2 kg., even with tube feeding, and was becoming very weak. Sadly, she soon passed away. On post mortem we discovered that she had a plastic impaction in her colon and a severe gut infection because of this.