Mote Marine Laboratory

A Special Message from Mote

A Special Message from John Reynolds
Director, Center for Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Research, Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium

On Sept. 25, we had the pleasure of watching Vicki Lee make her way back to the sea after five months of treatment at Mote. This amazing loggerhead sea turtle — an animal our research team had seen nest along our beaches more than a dozen times over the past 20 years — was going home after being washed ashore near death.

Since I've been with Mote, I've been excited to watch sea turtles and dolphins that had once been so sick return home to the wild, and it's been an honor to work with the staff and volunteers who help make these happy homecomings possible.

That's why I'm writing to ask for your help and support today. If everyone reading this note were to make a small commitment of support, just $5, we could ensure our ability to continue to help these sick and injured animals.

As a marine research laboratory and aquarium, it is our business to understand our oceans and help teach people about them. We also feel compelled to try and save the many protected, threatened and endangered species that become ill or injured in our region. Helping these animals also gives us important information we can use to protect these species in the wild.

This is especially true when sick dolphins and sea turtles wash up helpless on our shores as the result of some human-related activity.

Time and again, our donors, members and friends tell us that the hospital is one of the most important programs we provide... and yet, it also receives the smallest amount of financial support from the public.

There is no health insurance for sick wildlife and there are few state, federal or local funding sources that support the care of these critically sick animals. And while so many of you tell us that you want us to continue to care for sick dolphins and boat-struck sea turtles, the fact is that we simply do not receive enough donor support for these programs.

Maybe that's our fault.           

Maybe we haven't clearly explained that each year, we need to raise $125,000 just to keep the doors to the hospital open — to provide the staff, the equipment, the treatment tanks — so they are at the ready to care for sick animals at a moment's notice.

In telling their stories, we've probably never fully explained that treating each animal in our care is a significant additional cost per day, depending on an animal's individual needs.

Now, before it is too late for the next sick animal, I ask for your help and support today. Despite a difficult economy and because you share our commitment to these distressed animals, we ask you to consider making just a $5 donation in support of the hospital program.

With your help, I'm sure we can continue to help these sick animals get well.

With gratitude,

John Reynolds, Ph.D               
October 2009                                                              

Anakin and the Balloon Anakin is an endangered Kemp's ridley turtle that came to Mote for treatment after he was spotted washed ashore by some beachgoers. Anakin had swallowed the balloon pictured with him in the photograph above. Anakin has not yet been released. Read little Anakin's story.	Ginger Goes Home Ginger the dolphin stranded in Sarasota, Fla., in December 2008. Ginger is a local resident and had been monitored by the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program since her birth. The program is the world's longest running study of wild dolphins. Read the story of Ginger's release.	A Turtle Named Catch Catch, the loggerhead turtle, came to Mote with boat propeller wounds that had cut clear through his shell. Read hospital care notes about Catch.