Sea turtle Dilly Dally released into the ocean with three flippers after undergoing amputation

Dilly Dally, a loggerhead turtle who survived a run-in with a predator that ultimately cost her a front flipper, has been released from a Florida animal hospital back into the Atlantic Ocean.

“No dallying here! Dilly Dally is back home,” the Loggerhead Marinelife Center (LMC), a sea turtle conservation institute, wrote in a Wednesday post on Facebook. “We are so happy to see Dilly back in the ocean safe and sound!”

The post included a video of Dilly Dally swimming in a pool, sans her right front flipper, shortly before veterinary staff transported her to the ocean’s shore. Waiting for her at the beach, dozens of supporters watched as the nearly 160-pound reptile was gently placed on the sand, where she slowly pushed herself back into the Atlantic waters.

Dilly Dally, an adolescent loggerhead, first arrived at the LMC back in January after being attacked by a predator. Three weeks after her arrival, Dilly Dally went under the knife to remove the damaged appendage.

Despite a few wound complications during her five-month stay at the animal hospital, Dilly Dally now joins fellow rehabilitated loggerheads, Falafel — a fellow amputee — and Scout, in their return to the wild.

Dilly Dally, like other turtles treated and re-released by the LMC, will be tracked via satellite attached to her shell to chart her movements and monitor her re-acclimation to living in the wild.

Organizations like the LMC prioritize helping heal and protect sea turtles like loggerheads, amid ongoing threats to the endangered creatures’ dwindling population — estimated at only about 6.5 million left in the wild.

Worldwide, the animals and their eggs face the threat of poaching, accidental catching by fishermen and habitat degradation as a result of climate change, pollution and other factors. The World Wildlife Fund reports that of the seven species of sea turtles across the world, three are endangered — including two that are listed as critically endangered.

A 2023 study published in the Zoological Society of London‘s journal Animal Conservation that sought to track reproduction among female loggerhead amputees wrote that “limb amputation is a well-known phenomenon in sea turtles,” and the creatures are able to recover well and relearn to swim after rehabilitation.

The paper concluded that among sea turtles who had suffered amputations, adult females were able to swim ashore in order to nest, but the damaged appendages put them at greater risk from terrestrial threats during the process.

In addition to removal as a medical necessity, accidental amputations can occur among turtles in the wild, often as a result of collisions with boats or the reptiles getting caught in fishing gear.

Fans who want to watch Dilly Dally’s movements, or those of other sea turtles the LMC currently tracks, can virtually follow her journey here.