{"id":2668,"date":"2011-07-07T13:47:06","date_gmt":"2011-07-07T01:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auip.wordpress.com\/?p=1010"},"modified":"2011-07-07T13:47:06","modified_gmt":"2011-07-07T01:47:06","slug":"the-fact-files-how-do-you-find-out-why-a-sea-turtle-has-epileptic-fits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/the-fact-files-how-do-you-find-out-why-a-sea-turtle-has-epileptic-fits\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fact Files: How do you find out why a sea turtle has epileptic fits?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For those of you who have participated on one of our <a href=\"http:\/\/auip.com\/programs\/southqueensland.php\">South Queensland<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/auip.com\/programs\/northqueensland.php\">North Queensland<\/a>, Australia programs, it\u2019s a pretty safe bet that you\u2019ve grown rather attached to one of the ocean\u2019s most majestic creatures, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reef.crc.org.au\/discover\/plantsanimals\/facts_plantanimal.htm\">sea turtle<\/a>. Why is this a safe bet?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/auip.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/07\/reef_0037.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1011\" title=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/auip.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/07\/reef_0037.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a>Well, six of the world\u2019s seven species of sea turtle can be found swimming off of the coasts of Australia, in particular all six can be found cruising along the EAC (we know you\u2019ve seen Crush do this in <em>Finding Nemo<\/em>!) and the Great Barrier Reef. And these creatures are not particularly inconspicuous, with the largest species, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldwildlife.org\/species\/finder\/leatherbackturtle\/leatherbackturtle.html\">leatherback turtle<\/a>, weighing up to 1,100 pounds and stretching six feet. The most common species in Australia, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldwildlife.org\/species\/finder\/greenturtle\/greenturtle.html\">green turtle<\/a>, weighs up 290 pounds and stretches to five feet. Wow!<\/p>\n<p>With great sorrow, it\u2019s reported that six of the world\u2019s seven species of marine turtles are listed as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldwildlife.org\/species\/finder\/leatherbackturtle\/leatherbackturtle.html\">endangered<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldwildlife.org\/species\/finder\/leatherbackturtle\/leatherbackturtle.html\">critically endangered<\/a>. Fewer and fewer turtles are living long enough to reproduce because of anthropogenic (human-based) threats. We must therefore do all that we can to safeguard these regal creatures.<\/p>\n<p>But how do you find out why a five-foot-long sea turtle is having epileptic fits? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/blog\/post.cfm?id=enormous-endangered-epileptic-logge-2011-07-05&amp;WT.mc_id=SA_WR_20110706\">Read (and watch the video) about the exploits of Snorkel<\/a>, a 160-pound loggerhead turtle, who travelled more than 1,100 miles from her home at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth, England, to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cheltenhamimaging.co.uk\/index.php\">Cheltenham Imaging Center<\/a>, home of one England&#8217;s first open-bore MRI machines.<\/p>\n<p>Peruse the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldwildlife.org\/species\/finder\/marineturtles\/marineturtles.html\">WWF<\/a> website to see what they are doing to protect sea turtles and to see how you can get involved. If you have any comments, ideas or suggestions please share!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For those of you who have participated on one of our South Queensland or North Queensland, Australia programs, it\u2019s a pretty safe bet that you\u2019ve grown rather attached to one of the ocean\u2019s most majestic creatures, the sea turtle. Why is this a safe bet? Well, six of the world\u2019s seven species of sea turtle can be found swimming off&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,26,22,17,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia-north-queensland","category-australia-northern-territory","category-australia-south-queensland","category-australia-sydney","category-the-fact-files"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}