CROW sees influx of patients affected by red tide
CROW has recently seen an influx of sea turtle and sea bird patients since the end of October, many of which suffered from red tide.
The sea turtles arrived on Oct. 29, Oct. 30, Nov. 1 and two on Nov. 5. The first four were green sea turtles and the fifth was a loggerhead.
When sea turtles are affected by red tide, they become floaters, depressed, sometimes comatose and their heart rates become very slow – anywhere from four to six beats per minute. CROW Hospital Director Dr. Heather Barron said she has had some sea turtles in a comma for a week, or more.
“The liver is processing those toxins, so if you can just keep them alive long enough for their liver to do its job, then you may eventually have them recover and release them,” she said.
A mature male loggerhead, approximately 13 years or older, suffering from red tide, who was also missing his rear flipper from a previous injury, arrived at CROW Sunday, Nov. 6.
“It takes about 30 days for their toxin levels to go down to an acceptable level to where we consider releasing them,” she said.
An additional treatment provided for the sea turtles includes intravenous nutrition.
Some of the green turtles admitted to CROW also had fibropapilomatosis. One admitted Saturday, Nov. 5, had severe fibropapilomatosis and was euthanized because the tumors were internal and external.
FP is caused by a herpes virus, which causes tumors to grow as a result of the viral infection. Although all sea turtles, except leatherbacks can catch the virus, it is mostly found in green sea turtles.
“Like a lot of herpes viruses, we suspect that when the animal is suppressed or compromised in some way that sometimes allows the herpes virus to get out of control,” Barron said in an Oct. 5 article for the Island Reporter. “In a lot of species herpes is forever. Sometimes animals will have clinical signs and not look too bad and sometimes they will break with the clinical disease.”
In addition to sea turtles, CROW has also seen an influx in sea bird patients.
“We also took in 12 sea bird patients over the weekend with the red tide poisoning,” Barron said Monday, Nov. 7.
The majority of the sea birds that are treated for red tide at CROW are the double crested cormorants. Pelicans and gulls are also among the birds treated. Barron said each animal has different signs of red tide poisoning.
Double crested cormorants often times display signs of drunkenness and lose their fear of humans and gulls almost showcase signs of paralysis. Red tide can also affect the animal’s heart rate, with some getting as dangerously low as it no longer beating.
The average survival rate is 25-33 percent for most rehabilitation centers dealing with red tide patients and CROW was 55 percent. The release rate for sea turtles is 88 percent.
As of Nov. 7, Lee County was part of an area with low counts of red tide blooms. Barron said often times their patients pick up fish, sea grass, or turtle grass and keep swimming and flying.
“By the time the clinical signs hit they are down to Lee County. Sometimes there are animals that came from further north,” Barron said.
To help the wildlife recover from red tide poisoning, CROW has conducted internal research for better diagnostic and treatment options. The examination includes both blood work and X-rays.
“We do blood work and we find out if they have a high white blood cell count, so they go on antibiotics. Do they have a low red blood count, in other words are the anemic? If so, if they are dangerously low they get a blood transfusion. If their protein levels are very low, they get support for that. If their electrolytes are imbalanced, they get support for that. If they have cardiac arrhythmia, or their heartbeat is too slow, they get medication that corrects that. We really tailor our therapy to the individual,” Barron said. “We do a lot of diagnostic testing and find out exactly what is wrong with them and then we treat that.”
Through their research, CROW staff has found a lot of the animals with red tide poisoning also have high parasite burdens. Often times it is a parasite, or worm, that lives in the respiratory system.
She said they often contributed the coughing that the double crested cormorants did when admitted to CROW was from red tide.
“We didn’t really understand why some of them were coughing and others weren’t,” Barron said.
An endoscope gave Barron and her staff the ability to look inside the cormorant and see why they were coughing. The tool helped them discover that the cormorants had a tracheal worm. Barron said the worm is most likely compromising their ability to recover.
“A lot of them were very anemic. If we treated them for the worm, they stopped coughing up blood and were looking much better,” she said. “We have really worked hard to better understand what is going on with red tide poisoning and treating the individual.”
Once the patient is diagnosed they receive fluid treatment, supportive care, plasma transfusions if proteins are low, dewormed and physical therapy.
“A lot of times their gut, because they have eaten something that is poisonous, is in bad shape. They often have severe vomiting and diarrhea and often bleeding into their gut. We give them all kinds of supportive care for that,” Barron explained, including medication to help prevent second infections.
A grant from Solutions to Avoid Red Tide allowed CROW to conduct their first research concerning red tide. The research looked at protein as an indicator. Barron said they were able to correlate their protein levels with their probability of survival.
“If this guy came in and he has a total protein of 1.2, he has a 20 percent chance, or less of surviving unless we do something to correct that, which is how we started doing the plasma transfusions,” she said. “Now we are going to be examining if we give them plasma transfusions how does that affect their survivability.”
If the protein levels were above 2.3, the survival rate was above 50 percent.
Red tide season typically starts in October, Barron said most likely because of the rain increasing levels in Lake Okeechobee.
“Red tides is a normal, natural phenomenon,” she said, adding that Lee County is a hot bed for red tide.
The topography of the coast line traps the algae into Tarpon Bay when flowing into the body of water.
“Instead of moving on by, it tends to get caught up in the indentation of our coast line. It doesn’t help that we have all of that phosphorous and nitrogen, and other nutrients, which of course are used in the middle of the state to help plants grow. Algae is just a plant, so when you have all of that phosphorous and nitrogen, and other nutrients being used for agriculture running off in a river that is dumping out just north of us, that really allows the algae to bloom significantly,” Barron said.
CROW’s case load includes about 5 to 10 percent of its patients being affected by red tide annually, costing around $75,000 to treat.