KEY WEST, Fla. — A massive 170-pound sea turtle nicknamed “Molly” returned home to the warm waters of the Florida Keys Tuesday after successful surgery to remove a life-threatening tumor inches from her head and months of recovery. went viral on social networks.
In August, a charter fisherman found Molly, a loggerhead approximately 25 to 30 years old, trapped in commercial fishing lines that had tied her to a crab pot. The fishermen noticed that the fishing lines were tangled around a huge tumor on the left side of Molly's head.
“She had several tumors, but this 10.1-pound tumor is what really threatened her life,” said Bette Zirkelbach, manager of The Turtle Hospital, a small nonprofit working to rehabilitate endangered sea turtles in Marathon, Florida.
“It took all of her good blood, and when she came in, she was anemic,” Zirkelbach said. Once she was admitted to the hospital, Molly received fluid therapy, antibiotics, vitamins and a pressure bandage over the large tumor to stop the bleeding.
Molly underwent a 3-hour operation to remove the tumor. Zirkelbach said it was the largest tumor ever successfully removed, and after Molly had blood tests, she was ready to go home.
Hours before she was due to be released into the ocean, Molly was fitted with a satellite tracking device that will allow the hospital and the public to track her recovery and journey. The trackers from the Sea Turtle Conservancy cost about $5,000 and are attached using non-heat-resistant epoxy resin to “glue” the bottom of the transmitter to the turtle's shell. The goal is for the tracker to remain connected for six months to two years.
Molly tracker was attached to her shell and was then transported in a “turtle ambulance” to Higgs Beach in Key West, where a crowd of more than 100 people waited to see her final steps on the sand. She was brought to the water's edge, and then, once on the sand, she immediately headed into the ocean and swam away.
Tristian and Tori Edsel came from Columbia, South Carolina and went to the beach to see Molly freed. “I think she overcame all the difficulties with the tumor … and then she managed to return to where she came from, to the ocean,” Tristian Edsel said.
Zirkelbach reflected on the turtle's long journey: “Molly has helped so many people around the world fall in love with sea turtles… She has overcome all odds.”
