A sea turtle named Meatloaf is fighting to keep her flipper. Here's how you can cheer her on

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Visitors to the Aquarium of the Pacific can now get an up-close look at Meatloaf, a rescued green sea turtle undergoing rehabilitation after a serious flipper injury, according to officials.Meatloaf, who weighs more than 200 lbs, 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.“It took longer than expected to get her positioned out of the water,” said Nate Jaros, vice president of animal care at the Long Beach aquarium.

“She’s a very large turtle, the largest turtle we’ve worked on.”Despite the severity of her injuries, Jaros described Meatloaf 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.“The entangled line severely damaged a front flipper, cutting off blood supply,” Dr.Lance Adams, the aquarium’s director of veterinary services, said in a statement.

“We have been doing all we can, including surgery, to try and save the flipper.It is showing some early promising signs of healing.”Meatloaf’s ordeal highlights a broader issue facing marine wildlife along the Southern California coast.Jaros said sea turtles are drawn to river environments for their warmer 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.“There’s definitely a trash and plastic waste problem in that area where sea turtles are heavily concentrated,” he said.

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