{"id":260515,"date":"2026-04-10T03:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T03:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/260515\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T03:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T03:56:09","slug":"sea-turtle-meatloaf-fights-to-keep-flipper-at-aquarium-of-the-pacific","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/260515\/","title":{"rendered":"Sea turtle Meatloaf fights to keep flipper at Aquarium of the Pacific"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Visitors to Aquarium of the Pacific<\/a> can now get an up-close look at Meatloaf, a rescued green sea turtle undergoing rehabilitation after a serious flipper injury, according to officials.<\/p>\n

Meatloaf, who weighs more than 200 pounds, was rescued earlier this year after being found tangled in fishing line and rope in the San Gabriel River, aquarium staff said. The rope had cinched around one of her front flippers and worn the tissue down to the bone, necessitating urgent medical care.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took longer than expected to get her positioned out of the water,\u201d said Nate Jaros, vice president of animal care at the Long Beach aquarium. \u201cShe\u2019s a very large turtle, the largest turtle we\u2019ve worked on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the severity of Meatloaf\u2019s injuries, Jaros described the turtle as being in generally good condition and otherwise healthy before she was entangled. She has been recovering for three months since her first surgery to save her flipper and has shown promising improvement, though her journey is far from over. Turtles can take up to a year to fully recover from such injuries, according to Jaros.<\/p>\n

\"Meatloaf <\/p>\n

Meatloaf was rescued earlier this year after being found in the San Gabriel River tangled in fishing line and rope.<\/p>\n

(Aquarium of the Pacific)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe entangled line severely damaged a front flipper, cutting off blood supply,\u201d Dr. Lance Adams, the aquarium\u2019s director of veterinary services, said in a statement. \u201cWe have been doing all we can, including surgery, to try and save the flipper. It is showing some early promising signs of healing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meatloaf\u2019s ordeal highlights a broader issue facing marine wildlife along the Southern California coast.<\/p>\n

Jaros said sea turtles are drawn to river environments for their higher temperatures and available food sources, but those same waterways act as funnels for urban runoff and debris, making entanglement a recurring danger for the species.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s definitely a trash and plastic waste problem in that area where sea turtles are heavily concentrated,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Meatloaf\u2019s rescue was made possible by aquarium volunteers who conduct weekly and monthly field surveys monitoring green sea turtles in the San Gabriel River, according to Jaros. When community science volunteers first spotted the entangled turtle, they contacted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s stranding hot line and kept constant watch until aquarium staff members could respond. <\/p>\n

\"Meatloaf <\/p>\n

Officials say Meatloaf\u2019s ordeal highlights a broader issue facing marine wildlife along the Southern California coast.<\/p>\n

(Aquarium of the Pacific)<\/p>\n

Veterinarians then assessed whether Meatloaf could be safely disentangled in the water or needed to be brought in for further care, Jaros said. Ultimately, the veterinarians deemed it necessary to bring her to the aquarium. <\/p>\n

Meatloaf now swims in the aquarium\u2019s sea turtle rehabilitation area, which opened in January. The 4,000-gallon pool was designed to accommodate rescued sea turtles found across Los Angeles County.<\/p>\n

The pool is open for public viewing, allowing visitors a real-time look at marine animal recovery.<\/p>\n

According to Jaros, this visibility helps educate the public on the complexities and specifics of the marine animal rehabilitation process.<\/p>\n

Meatloaf is not the first turtle to call the pool home. Before her, there was Porkchop, who was also rescued from the San Gabriel River with similar front flipper injuries.<\/p>\n

She ultimately had to have her flipper amputated, according to Jaros. After a year of post-amputation evaluation to ensure she could survive independently, Porkchop was released back into the wild<\/a> in February and has since been spotted swimming alongside other sea turtles.<\/p>\n

Aquarium of the Pacific is one of only two facilities in Southern California with a dedicated sea turtle rehabilitation space<\/a>, a distinction that puts it at the center of the region\u2019s efforts to protect an increasingly threatened species. The other is SeaWorld San Diego.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Visitors to Aquarium of the Pacific can now get an up-close look at Meatloaf, a rescued green sea…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[17124,75424,349,48,52,51,47,50,49,63,114515,107263,1602,114710,91826,114709,114711,5937,55009,12382,72],"class_list":{"0":"post-260515","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-aquarium","9":"tag-flipper","10":"tag-injury","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-la-headlines","13":"tag-la-news","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","16":"tag-los-angeles-news","17":"tag-los-angeles-times","18":"tag-meatloaf","19":"tag-nate-jaros","20":"tag-pacific","21":"tag-public-viewing","22":"tag-san-gabriel-river","23":"tag-sea-turtle-meatloaf","24":"tag-sea-turtle-rehabilitation-area","25":"tag-southern-california-coast","26":"tag-veterinarian","27":"tag-visitor","28":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}