Azura

Azura had a very severely infected front flipper after being entangled in a ghost net. She needed an amputation and responded well to treatment. The infection ran deep into her shoulder. She has lost most of the tissue in that area, but despite this, we have managed to treat the infection to stop it spreading further.

The deep wound in her shoulder has now healed completely and her shoulder looks fantastic compared to when she first came in.

20 July 2019
Azura also had some proliferative tissue, called proud flesh, on her nose, which occurred due to trauma to the area. Vet Jackie performed surgery to remove this mass; Azura recovered well and her nose healed up fast. She was quickly back to her usual self, minus the mass, which means her nostrils are no longer at risk of obstruction.

27 July 2019
Azura remains buoyant and continues to try to launch herself at her food. However, she loves feeding time and eats enthusiastically. We had to get new long tongs so our hands could be far away from her mouth when we feed her. We are also encouraging her to eat under water and she has made some progress on that, but still occasionally misses a food item. She watches it sink to the bottom of the tank whilst looking longingly at it, not managing to dive for it. Don’t worry, we always retrieve it for her!

3 August 2019
Azura is still eating well below the water line, however, she rushes at her food and occasionally drops one. The final scab from her shell injury has fallen off and it is now healing in well.

10 August 2019
Azura has been moved to the other side of the large tank to encourage her to dive. She has actually been an angel this week, not trying to fight Thomas through the barrier, and enjoying the bigger space.

17 August 2019
Azura enjoyed the space in the large tank this week. She is still buoyant with not much of a change. Her appetite is great, and we are monitoring her nose lesion which may be getting slightly larger. Fingers crossed it doesn’t grow any more.

26 August 2019
Azura’s bone lesion is no longer showing active infection, so she has stopped antibiotic treatment. Her nose mass appears to be growing back, however. It is not as large as the first time, but we will continue to assess whether it requires another surgery.

2 September 2019
Azura has been well this week. However, she is still floating quite high in the water and cannot dive, even though she wants to! Her appetite is ravenous and the volunteers really need to watch their fingers around her.

11 September 2019
Azura has had a good week. She is still eating well. We are monitoring her nose mass which has grown back, but is not as large as last time. It may require more surgery down the track.  She is still buoyant. She also had an x-ray this week to be sure her osteomyelitis lesion is still stable and it is – which is fabulous.

23 September 2019
Azura is doing well. She is as feisty as always and food is still the most important thing on her mind. She enjoyed her fish-cicle frozen enrichment this week. Although she is still buoyant, she was seen trying to dive, so she certainly isn’t giving up on the dream of making it to the bottom! 

1 October 2019
Azura is still buoyant this week. She is not a fan of the floating ball and got bored with it fairly quickly. Her appetite is great and we are waiting for the results regarding the mass on her nose.    

7 October 2019
Azura has been trying to dive this week but is still buoyant. When Thomas leaves us, she will move to the big tank where she will have more space to practice. She also needs a touch up surgery on her nose mass. Our Visiting Vet Dr. Francesco brought us some special medication to hopefully keep it under control! 

14 October 2019
Azura had her touch up nose surgery this week and we are applying a new medication to hopefully keep the mass from recurring. She is being moved this week to our new Turtle Rehabilitation Centre at One and Only Reethi Rah to finish her recuperation. She will be able to practice her diving and will be well cared for by our resident Sea Turtle Biologist Laura.

16 October 2019
Azura was successfully transferred to her new home at One & Only Reethi Rah via sea plane and speedboat. She has settled in well.

13 November 2019
Azura has been settling in well at One & Only, she has been enjoying her ocean swims to provide some mental stimulation during her rehabilitation and loves to play with the submerged buoys in the tank that our Sea Turtle Biologist made as enrichment.

Dr Jackie Reed also recently visited for a check up of Azura. She took a physical examination and unfortunately her bone infection has flared up again. She will therefore be put on a course of antibiotics and given a lot of rest to recover. Fortunately she has a lovely big tank all to herself where she will receive lots of yummy fresh seafood and TLC at One & Only Reethi Rah.

18 November 2019
Azura is recovering nicely from her bone infection. The swelling of her flipper has gone down significantly since she has been on antibiotics, so we will shortly be taking off her anti inflammatory medication and continue her course of antibiotics. To treat this poorly girl, our dive team brought her back a jellyfish; she was very interested and enjoyed her special treat. This will also aid with mental stimulation and enrichment.

25 November 2019
Azura is still recovering from her buoyancy syndrome and we are happy that she is also recovering well from her bone infection in her remaining flipper. She is still on antibiotics but is showing good progress with using her front flipper to swim. Azura will start to go back out for weekly ocean swims with our Sea Turtle Biologist now that she is showing good recovery. Azura also enjoyed her spa day where she was given a good scrub due to algae build up.

13 January 2020
Azura has been making a lot of progress with her buoyancy syndrome. She has also finished her antibiotic course for her bone infection in her flipper. Since her recovery, she has been showing significant improvement with her diving on our lagoon swims, and hopefully she will start to dive more frequently in her tank.

20 January 2020
Azura has a really healthy appetite and is showing more and more progress with her diving during our lagoon sessions. To keep her motivated to dive in her tank, we attach food to a submerged buoy which she has to “hunt”. And she really goes for it!

28 January 2020
Azura is still showing steady progress with her diving. We have lowered her submerged buoy as she was reaching the previous level with ease. To monitor her health, we also weigh her weekly. She is maintaining a constant weight of 24.4 kg and looking really healthy! She was taken out for a swim, but much like people, it just wasn’t her day and she wasn’t in the mood to dive too much. Azura is a real character and really showed her diva side, but we still love her. She is still extremely excited and motivated by food, so to show how much we care, our chef prepared lobster for her the other day too.

3 February 2020
Azura is still practicing her diving in the tank. She has been working hard to reach her submerged buoy and she is able to dive down to 41 cm so far. We are lowering it every couple of days to try and motivate her to dive more often. Azura enjoyed her last lagoon session with seeing all the fish; she was not in the mood to dive but enjoyed a different scenery.

10 February 2020
Azura has been enjoying all the yummy seafood particularly the fresh prawns the chefs have been specially providing for her. She is much more motivated to dive when we attach food (particularly prawns) to her buoy, so every few days we lower it to make her dove deeper. The weather has not been suitable to go out for a lagoon swim, but once it calms down, Azura will enjoy being in the sea with all the fish which can provide some mental stimulation in captivity.

24 February 2020
Azura has been a little less of a diva lately. She was also very happy to go out on a lagoon swim and dived down 6 times! She dived deeper than we have observed before, so this is great news and we hope that she will continue to make more progress. She is proving to be very popular with everyone at the resort and we love her unique and sassy personality!

2 March 2020
Azura is getting more motivated to dive in her tank, but only if prawns or lobster are involved… Definitely a girl that enjoys the finer things in life! However, her healthy appetite and interest in diving is great to see, and gives us hope that she will eventually improve.

6 April 2020
Azura is still working on her buoyancy; she seems to get lower in the water and is managing to dive deeper for her food. She is a real favourite of ours, especially our turtle biologists (but don’t tell Eve!!). It is great to see Azura showing gradual improvement with her buoyancy and still having a very healthy appetite.

13 April 2020
Azura has been enjoying more lagoon swims to focus on improving her buoyancy and was treated to a yummy iceblock full of her favourite seafood this week!

20 April 2020
Azura is showing more interest in trying to dive down in the tank by herself without being prompted with food. This is good progress for her as she can be a little bit lazy! We hope she will continue to try to dive more.

18 May 2020
Azura is beeing treated like a queen these days as she is lavished with her favourite seafood, including crab and lobster! She will especially push herself to dive for these – which is great to see! Since the weather has been too rough we haven’t managed to take her out for a swim, but look forward to seeing how much she has progressed with diving when it is safe to do so.

22 June 2020
Azura is still buoyant but has enjoyed her lagoon swims when we have been able to go out as the weather has been a little rough recently. However, she is still highly motivated to dive for food! Especially for prawns and lobsters. We hope she will keep making steady progress.

23 July 2020
Due to the temporary closing of our Rehabilitation Centre at One & Only Reethi Rah, we relocated Azura back to Coco Palm Dhuni Kolhu on 11 July 2020. Our Sea Turtle Biologist, Laura, transported Azura, and picke up our new patient Coral on the way, to the Marine Turtle Rescue Centre by speed boat – a 4 hour round trip.

Azura has settled in well back at the Marine Turtle Rescue Center – it is nice to have her back, but we would have preferred to release her. Unfortunately, she is still not diving well enough to survive in the wild.

27 September 2020

After her return to the Rescue Centre in Baa Atoll from the Rehabilitation Centre at One and Only Reethi Rah in North Malé Atoll, Azura has settled in well to life back at Coco Palm. She is still buoyant but she definitely makes a concerted effort.

Although there hasn’t been much change, we feel the trend is in the right direction. She dived down to 2.5 metres on a recent sea swim! We have collected some crabs for her which she absolutely loves, and she tries to dive a little when she goes to catch them! She has some x-rays scheduled for this week to re-assess her ongoing buoyancy issues.

4 October 2020
Azura had a great sea swim this week where she managed to get down to a recorded 2.7m. She managed to maintain that depth for about 5 or so seconds before she let herself float up. We are going to be taking her out as often as we are able, so likely every day or every 2 days. She is going again today. She has very little motivation to dive in the tank despite our variety of ingenious food holding contraptions but we will continue to put her through her paces.

10 October 2020
We are taking Azura out to swim every 2-3 days and she has had an amazing week. Jinaad, our intern, and Dr Minnie took her out on the 6th and the current was strong, but she really tried even though they were getting blown round the west of the island where it is really shallow and had to bring her in early. On the 8th October she dived to 7m with a dive time of 2.5 minutes – far deeper and far longer than she ever has dived before. She did that twice to the same depth and for the same time. This is the first time that she has stayed comfortably at the bottom without floating back up quickly, so it was amazing to see. We hope she will continue to make that kind of progress.

1 November 2020
Due to the choppy sea conditions lately, Azura hasn’t been trying to dive as much as she usually does on our sea swims. Hopefully we will have better sea conditions moving into next week and get her back on her amazing diving streaks! She is otherwise well, eating heartily as usual and always very active in her tank. The waterline on her carapace is getting higher, meaning she is sitting a little lower in the water which is a good sign.

8 November 2020
We started to notice that, on the last few sea swims, despite very calm waters, Azura was not attempting to dive and that it was because of her flipper, not because of her buoyancy issues. This has only recently developed, as she recently managed an amazing 7 meter dive. We repeated x-rays on and unfortunately found evidence of major degradation of her elbow joint – likely due to an infection. She has been started on antibiotics and anti-inflammatories and is already showing signs of improvement.

One morning this week we discovered something a little odd in Azura’s faeces: over night she had passed a plastic bottle cap! The shocking part is that Azura has been with us for more than a year and she has not been exposed to any plastic like this. This probably means that the bottle cap has been in her intestines for over a year before she managed to pass it. Thankfully she was not showing any clinical signs associated with the ingestion of a foreign object, but it could have caused some serious damage. Azura was lucky, but many marine creatures who ingest plastic or other foreign objects are not so lucky.

16 November 2020
Azura has shown a great response to her medication, some anti-inflammatories and some antibiotics, which she is on every 48hrs. She is bright and active and next week we will take her back on sea swims and get her out using that flipper properly again! Fingers crossed we see some great dive attempts again.

23 November 2020
Azura has responded really well to her medication and is using her flipper much better. We haven’t managed a sea swim though, as the weather has been pretty stormy for most of this week. We will try as soon as we can. We are confident that she will be attempting to dive again.

30 November 2020
Azura has been back out sea swimming this week now that she is showing a great response to the medication. On the 23rd, there were no major achievements but she was at least trying to dive again – which was encouraging. Another sea swim on the 29th surprised us when she dived down straight away and swam underwater for about 100m! Only at a depth of about 1.5m but still very encouraging. 

7 December 2020
Azura is back on top form, diving better on her sea swims, eating as well as always and generally very bright and active around the big tank, which we keep her in most of the time now. She is soon to finish her medication course too.

13 December 2020
Azura is doing really well. We haven’t managed any more sea swims, but she eagerly zooms around her tank. We look forward to taking her out this coming week. She has stopped her anti-inflammatory injection and just has a few more antibiotic doses to go before she has finished the course and we will have hopefully sorted out her infection.

28 December 2020
Azura has been doing really well. She has been off antibiotics now since the 20th of December and the use of her flipper remains the same so that’s great – she seems back to normal. She needs one more repeat x-ray, just to compare, but we are happy we seem to have got on top of her infection. Azura needs to go swimming again but with terrible weather last week it has not been possible. She’s enjoying the big tank in the meantime.

11 January 2021
Azura had a sea swim this week; it has been quite a while since she’s been out so she was a bit unsure and took a while to get going. When she finally did, she attempted a few dives but nothing spectacular. She did seem to be using her flipper well though, so hopefully we aren’t seeing any recurrence of her elbow issue after 6 weeks of antibiotics.

17 January 2021
Azura had a follow up X-ray of her elbow this week, which shows that her bone is looking good. There are no signs that the infection is still active. She has been off antibiotics for quite a few weeks now, and the next step is rigorous reintroduction to sea swims – we really want her to be released in the near-ish future! We know she can do it, she just needs to get used to it again!! 

24 January 2021
Unfortunately, Azura still hasn’t been out for a swim, but that will be the plan for this coming week! We are committed to getting her diving now that her elbow is sorted. She continues to be a favourite at the centre for her keenness to be where everyone is by the side of her tank.

31 January 2021
Azura had a repeat blood sample on the 29th to assess for ongoing signs of infection in her elbow. Although via x-ray it looks stable and she is using it, she has been very lackluster on sea swims so there is a concern she is still dealing with a problem. We have ordered anti fungal medication to start her on, as often these joint infections can have a fungal component. 

7 February 2021
Azura has been in a medium tank this week but she still swims around pretty well, she is using her flipper well but her lacklustre efforts on sea swims have been worrying us. We are awaiting the arrival of some new medication to get her started in case her elbow problem is still ongoing. 

23 February 2021
Azura has been started on an anti-fungal treatment that will go on for 8 weeks. We will swim her in the meantime to try and get her diving properly again.

7 March 2021
Azura is now being fed from floating buoys to encourage her to dive and she is doing well. We are happy with how she is progressing on her medications for her elbow.

15 March 2021
Azura continues to improve on her medication and we are still making her dive for her food as much as possible. When we get a chance, we want to take her out on a sea swim to see what she can do!

22 March 2021
Azura is doing really well with her new medication and we are very happy with her progress. We are going to start her on an intensive sea swim regime to get her back up to speed.

29 March 2021
Azura had an amazing sea swim on the 23rd, where she reached a depth of 8m for about 5 minutes. She looked very comfortable at that depth, and was foraging and generally looking good! She had 2 subsequent sea swims in the week and, unfortunately, didn’t replicate it. We are therefore lengthening the times between sea swims, as she is obviously very unfit and will need time to rest in between. We are confident she will continue to do well!

4 April 2021
Azura is still going out on regular sea swims but has variable performance each time; we are trying to work out the perfect ratio of swims to rest days. She continues on her medication for her elbow.

11 April 2021
Azura had another sea swim this week where she got going much faster, but didn’t try to dive. We are concerned her elbow is still playing up, so she is going to have a few more x-rays. We are also going to try and take a sample of the fluid around her elbow joint to check for bacteria or fungi to track her progress.

18 April 2021
Azura had yet another sea swim where, unfortunately, she didn’t put much effort into diving. It’s hard to tease apart what is behavioural and what is due to her elbow, but she has been started on a different course of antibiotics following an ultrasound and a joint tap (where we took a small sample of fluid from her affected elbow to try and diagnose further what the issues are). 

25 April 2021
Azura has been on her new antibiotic for a week and is doing well. She can now spend more time in an appropriate sized tank since are down to 8 patients.

2 May 2021
Azura is as bright as ever and has regained the weight she lost. We haven’t had a chance to take her on a sea swim as the weather hasn’t been great, but hopefully we can get out there soon and see how she gets on. She is on a different medication for her elbow and she seems stable on it. Current weight: 24.2kg

9 May 2021
Azura is doing well this week; she is nice and bright and active. She is using her flipper fine, we just really want to get out and swim but the sea conditions haven’t been good!

16 May 2021
Azura is doing well, she is bright and active. She is still on medication for her elbow and she is using it well. Sadly no sea swims yet due to the very stormy weather!

23 May 2021
Azura continue to be bright and active and remains a consistent weight. She is still on medication for her elbow and uses it completely normally, but it remains to be seen how she will perform on a sea swim; still waiting for the weather to pick up!

30 May 2021
Azura is the same. Sadly no chance to swim yet due to the bad sea conditions but fingers crossed we can go soon!

6 June 2021
Azura has been doing really well and seems even more active at the moment! When she’s been in our small holding tanks, she has been diving for the food on the bottom, which is great and something we always want to encourage. Still haven’t managed to get out for any swims due to rough seas.

13 June 2021
Azura is brighter than ever and raring to go on a swim, we’re sure! But unfortunately conditions remain too rough at the moment. Azura is nearing the end of treatment for her elbow infection, after being on 3 different medications to get on top of it.

20 June 2021
Azura has now finished her medication for her elbow and so we shall continue to monitor how she is using it. We are still awaiting better weather to take her out, but in the meantime she certainly flies around her tank!

27 June 2021
Azura came off her medication, but unfortunately we then noticed that she stopped using her flipper as well as before. So she is back on and evidently needs a longer course. This is a little frustrating but we will persist with her! Thankfully she is bright and active and happy.

4 July 2021
Azura has been doing well this week, eating as brilliantly as ever, active and bright and using her flipper well.

11 July 2021
Azura has been doing great! She is moving her flipper well and we’ve taken to sinking her food on buoys again every now and then to stimulate her to dive, which she does well!

18 July 2021
Azura is back on an intense training regime of diving for her meals! We put the food on buoys that we sink down in the water and this makes her dive for them; it’s great work out for her muscles as she isn’t very fit these days! It also makes her flex her brain, which is never a bad thing. She is doing really well reaching them, so next week we will drop the buoy lower and increase the difficulty! Still haven’t been able to make a sea swim due to the choppy conditions.

25 July 2021
Azura has had a great week; we finally managed a sea swim with her and, unusually for her, she got going immediately! Normally she waits about 30 minutes before she sets off swimming, but this time she was off and diving straight out the gate. She managed a number of good dives, but we were in a relatively shallow area so she couldn’t get down really deep. It was also a bit choppy, so she had waves to contend with, but all in all, she was using her flipper 100% and she looked great out there. Fingers crossed we can keep this progress going and eventually get her back out there!

1 August 2021
Azura had another sea swim this week and she did very well! She gets started a lot quicker than before and tries to dive from the get go. We are really pleased with how she is getting on. She remains bright and active and very hungry as always!

8 August 2021
Azura has been doing well this week. She is consistently diving for her food and overall is bright and active.

26 August 2021
Azura is still floating but has shown good progress on sea swims of late and we are planning to take her out as soon as the weather becomes less windy.

7 September 2021
Azura is still floating but she has shown good progress on sea swims of late. We are planning to take her out again this week.

12 September 2021
Azura is as lively as ever! Swimming and eating very well in the tank but on this week’s sea swim she didn’t swim very well.

20 September 2021
Azura is still buoyant but has shown good progress on her sea swims. Her most recent sea swim, however, was not too successful as she refused to unlock her back flippers and mostly floated in the sea!

27 September 2021
Azura has been off all medications for over a month now and is doing very well. We have been progressively lowering the buoy that we feed her on in the water and she is doing a great job of getting to it. She remains in good spirits and eating everything!

4 October 2021
Azura has been doing really well diving for the buoy with her food on it. She puts in a lot of effort and we have been slowly dropping it to encourage her. We sadly haven’t managed any sea swims recently due to the sea conditions, but hopefully we will get out there soon!

10 October 2021
Azura is using her flipper very well when diving for her food on the buoy. We haven’t been on any sea swims yet, but we hope to do so in the coming days now that the sea conditions are improving.

18 October 2021
No sea swims for Azura this week as the sea conditions have been exceedingly rough. However, she continues to be really motivated to dive for her food on the sunken buoy. She is able to get it more quickly and we are sinking it slowly. Although she is still quite awkward trying to get down, practicing the motions is never a bad thing. She is in excellent health and very active.

24 October 2021
Azura has been putting in a great performance diving both in her tank for her food off the buoy and out in the sea. She has been on two sea swims this week. She got started right away and managed to dive immediately. She can also get down a lot more easily now. We weren’t sure if this day would come but we think it won’t be long before we can let her go!! We are so proud of her; it has taken a long time and she has battled all sorts over the last 2 years and 6 months, including multiple surgeries on her nose and her flipper, buoyancy syndrome, and chronic elbow infections. But finally she has overcome nearly everything! We will of course keep you posted about this exciting development. 

31 October 2021
Azura is still doing well! She went on a sea swim this week where we took her right out to the deep and she had a number of good dives. She still struggles a bit with her breathing because she exerts herself a lot to get down, meaning she runs out of breath sooner than she should, but this should improve as we keep practicing. We placed a floating plastic buoy in her tank and interestingly, she seems to enjoy “playing” with it; she will follow after it and push it along with her head; it’s great to watch!

8 November 2021
Azura is going from strength to strength. We x-rayed her elbow this week and can confirm that nothing has changed since she completed her various courses of medication some months back now, and thankfully everything is looking good. She went on another sea swim this week and she did very well indeed, showing a lot more ease in her diving and able to get to greater depths for longer. We are getting there!

15 November 2021
Azura continues to do very well. We feed her from a sunken buoy both feeding time, and we have been able to steadily lower it. She is so motivated to try reaching it – which is always great to see! She has also been on a few sea swims this week with excellent performances, diving to at least 15m and staying there for a good 3 to 4 minutes. She just needs to reduce her surface interval a little before she can swim off into the blue for good!

21 November 2021
It has been a slightly slower week for Azura. The sea conditions haven’t been very good so we haven’t been able to take her out for a swim. She has been temporarily moved to the medium tanks while Xena takes her place in the big tank. She is still diving really well for her food every morning, so we continue to be happy with her progress.

28 November 2021
Azura finally had a sea swim this week. It was not her best performance as it was quite choppy, but it is all excellent practice. She is noticeably quicker to dive from the surface and spends a lot less time trying. Overall her buoyancy syndrome is definitely improved and she is getting closer and closer to release.

5 December 2021
Azura had a sea swim this week which went very well – especially as the visibility and conditions were perfect. We are going to arrange with the resort to take a boat out on one of her next sea swims so that we can observe her from a distance even out in the deep and see if she’s ready to go!

12 December 2021
Azura had a great week of sea swims, and continues to dive really well for her food daily. We are really hopeful she will be able to go home soon!

13 December 2021
After 2 years, 8 months and 11 days, we are so happy to report that Azura has finally been released! She had been getting better and better at diving since she overcame her elbow infection about 3-4 months ago, and, although she would never dive in a tank (except for her food in an incredible spectacle where she would splash every guest within a 50 metre radius!), she was becoming very adept at diving when she was back in the sea. So finally, after many sea swims, we decided today was the day that she would be able to comfortable leave us and have the best chance of survival in the wild.