The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a 100,000 gallon salt-water swimming pool, a hotel and a strip club all had a role in the founding of this hospital for injured sea turtles on Marathon Key in Florida.

On my way to Key West for work, we stopped at the Turtle Hospital — and I learned about bubble butt syndrome, met the first turtle to be diagnosed with it (named Bubble Butt, of course), saw critically endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles, and learned just how devastating fishing hooks and line are for turtles.

Before it was a turtle hospital, the property on Marathon Key was a hotel called the Hidden Harbor Motel. Built in 1946, the sea green motel buildings are small, simple and square. Also built in 1946, was a 100,000 salt-water swimming pool, fed by the waters of Florida Bay.

At the time, it was all the rage to swim in a salt-water pool, explained Tara Vickrey, our guide. Fast forward about 40 years, and a man named Richie Moretti from New Jersey purchased the property. It wasn’t in fashion anymore to have a saltwater swimming pool, so the owner made it into an aquarium to attract guests. He stocked it with all kinds of fish, but one little boy who was obsessed with Teenage Mutant Ninjas was disappointed that there weren’t any turtles in the pool.

But Moretti found that he couldn’t just buy a sea turtle and keep it in captivity — they’re endangered creatures, protected by law. So instead, he founded a sea turtle hospital to care for injured sea turtles. At some point, he needed more space, so purchased a building next door that used to be a strip club. That’s where the hospital is today.

On our visit, the hospital was preparing for any oil spill effects. They’d already had a difficult winter, after record-low temperatures caused terrible trouble for hundreds of turtles in the Gulf. There are dozens of turtles that live permanently at the hospital, and because the pool is fed by water from the bay the hospital had to relocate their permanent residents as well as take in turtles stunned by the frigid waters.

To do that, they collected kiddie swimming pools from the community and kept the turtles inside in their turtle hospital, as well as in some old hotel rooms. The hotel hasn’t been a hotel for a long time, except for a certain time of year when people pay to stay their and the proceeds benefit the hospital.

If oil came to the keys, the hospital would have to relocate the turtles that live in the pool, and help clean any that came in with oil. They planned to use large, emergency tanks and also, if they had to, those kiddie pools.

On the day we were there, a large turtle named Bender, a Kemps Ridley turtle, was having a new weight put on its shell. Bender was hit by a boat and so now has a misshapen shell so the turtle can’t dive as it normally would. To allow the turtles to live a normal life in the hospital’s saltwater pool, the staff at the hospital attaches weight belts to their shells.

Bender’s belt had to be attached and then readjusted, and then the turtle could dive normally.

We also saw x-rays of turtles with fishing hooks embedded in their stomachs, or fishing lines wrapped around their flippers. And many of the turtles there were affected by a virus called Fibropapillomatosis that affects Green turtles in particular and other species as well. It causes internal and external tumors that look like big growths of cawliflower. External tumors can be removed, but internal ones are usually fatal. The hospital does surgery on turtles to remove the tumors.

The disease is increasingly prevalent around the world, and most common in warmer regions. Areas with poor water turnover are most at risk, especially where human waste enters the water. In Florida Bay, the waters between the Keys and mainland Florida, about 50 to 70 percent of the Green sea turtle population has the disease.

If you go to the hospital, you’ll get a tour, a history of the place, and you’ll get to see all kinds of turtles — from fist sized babies to large, hundreds-of-pounds adults. It’s worth a stop.

Trip information

Turtle Hospital

When: Education Center and Gift Shop open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., tours run daily at 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.

Cost: It costs $15 for adults, $7.50 for kids ages 4 to 12. Children younger than 18 must be accompanied by an adult

Phone: Reservations are highly recommended as space is limited, 305-743-2552 

We crossed the Everglades on Tamiami Trail, past Shark Valley, Wooton’s, Miccosukee and Seminole lands. Now we’re on Krome Avenue, about 140 miles from Key West.

Where we are right now, it’s an agricultural area and we’re driving by fields of flowers, orchids, palm trees and produce. There are orchid stands along the side of the road, and we just passed a winery.

There was also a man hawking a puppy on the side of the road, a sign in Spanish offering baby goats for sale and a shelf full of alligator heads at the rest stop.

On one of our first mornings in the new house, I looked out the front window to see a flock of brown ibises hunting for bugs in our front lawn. I’d never ones quite like them before, but soon figured out that they were Glossy Ibises.

White ibises are so common around Southwest Florida that you see them just about everywhere — roadsides, parking lots, beaches, strip malls — and I wrote a post about them already. Glossy Ibises look very similar… let’s see what other info I can dig up about them:

Appearance: Glossy Ibis are dark wading birds with a long, downward-curving bill and long, dark legs.When they’re immature, they look similar but have a dark, banded bill and less glossy body.

Range: Southeastern United States year round, as well as up the eastern coast to Maine. Also Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia.

Habitat: Live in marshy areas

Food: Insects, crabs, crayfish, and any other small insect or creature it can dig out of wet grassy areas like my new front yard.

Nesting: They nest in trees or on the ground, often in colonies with other wading birds.

Status: They are considered a species of “least concern” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Facts: Glossy ibises haven’t lived on the North American continent for very long — they’re originally from Africa. Scientists believe it flew across the Atlantic to South America and then slowly expanded north.

Sources: Cornell University Lab of Ornithology, New Hampshire Public Television, National Audubon Society

Not this beach.

Though there are high rises to the south, Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park is a mile-long bit of preserved beach, no buildings behind you. It’s one of my favorite places to run on the beach, and you’re also pretty much guaranteed to see all sorts of birds and wildlife there.

The north end of the beach curls around to the pass. Since the waves are strong there, it’s not a good place to go swimming — but, there are always people fishing there. Along the mile-long access road there are four parking lots, with barbecue and picnic table spots all along the way. It’s the best place in Naples to have a beachside barbecue.

(And, there are also bathhouses with bathrooms and outside showers – good for families).

Trip information

Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park:

Where: 11135 Gulf Shore Drive, Naples

When: Open 8 a.m. to sundown every day

Cost: $6 vehicle with 2-8 people, $4 vehicle with 1 person, $2 walkers, bicyclists, extra passengers.

Phone: 239-597-6196

Don’t miss: I had to quit picking up shells because otherwise I would have filled my apartment with them by now, but this is a great beach for shell and sand dollar hunting. I’ve also seen dolphins and manatees here on multiple occasions, so keep an eye out.

Then, as a thank you gift she sent me a new book: “Florida’s Birds – A field guild and ference” by David S. Maehr and Herbert W. Kale. Here’s a link to the book on Amazon.

It’s a beautiful book, with detailed descriptions of lots of species, and Florida specific information in the back, including feeder tips, care for sick, injured and orphaned birds, conservation and more.

A new park opened last fall in Naples, and it’s unique because along with being a place to enjoy being outside, it’s also a water filtering area. Storm water passes through the park and gets filtered before it dumps into the Gordon River and then into Naples Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.

I stopped there last Sunday just before sunset, and walked the boardwalk and trail in about 30 minutes. I’m not sure exactly how long the trails are, but there’s a boardwalk loop around to the right of the visitor center, and a boardwalk and trail loop around to the left.

It’s very close to some main roads, so for part of the boardwalk you can hear it, but it’s also very beautiful. When I was there you could see that the restoration of the area was still a work in progress. It used to be called the Gordon River Water Quality Park.

There were great egrets flying overhead the night I was there, squirrels and a rabbit. There were also tons of small birds flitting around, but I have to admit, I don’t know what they were.

There are only about 100 panthers left in Florida, but at one time their situation was much worse. In the late 1980s, just 20 to 30 remained. They’ve been brought by through conservation and breeding efforts, but still are at huge risk of extinction.

You can read more about the species in one of my previous posts.

To celebrate the month, the Florida Panther Refuge in Eastern Collier County will be having events starting with a kick-off day on Saturday, March 6 at the Naples Zoo (that one is free for Collier County residents).

There is also an open house at the refuge itself on March 20, which will be declared “Save the Panther” day by Governor Charlie Christ. At the open house, guests will get to go on swamp walks, guided hikes, swamp buggy rides and more. Reservations are required for some of the activities and you can find more information here.

Sounds like fun, right? Best of all, it’s handicap accessible and there’s even a golf cart to transport you there (or back) if unable to walk (or too sunburnt).

Clam Pass park is a 35-acre area preserved by Collier County. The boardwalk is 3/4-mile long, and it goes through a mangrove forest and a tidal bay area that is a breeding area and nursery for marine life, wildlife and birds.

At the end of the boardwalk, you’ll find a beach pavilion with bathrooms, a snack bar with food, drinks and a place to sit and lots of room on the sand. It’s a pretty place.

Trip information

Clam Pass Park

Where: Seagate Drive and Crayton Road in Naples

When: Open 8 a.m. to sundown every day

Cost: Free for Collier County residents with beach parking sticker, others pay small fee at gate to park.

Phone: 239-252-4000

Don’t miss: Walk the boardwalk at least one way — it’s pretty, and you’ll earn your time relaxing on the beach! A fun fact: it’s actually made of plastic made from recycled bottles. Who knew?

There are three populations of minks in Florida. The first population is the Everglades mink, which lives in South Florida and is listed as a threatened species, and the other two populations live in the salt marches of the northern Gulf and Atlantic coasts.

Everglades minks live in shallow, freshwater swamps in the southern Everglades, Fakahatchee Strand and Big Cypress Swamp. No one knows how many Everglades minks are out there, or how many there used to be, but they do know that the Everglades minks used to also range through the Northern Everglades and Lake Okeechobee.

Mink are part of the weasel family, and they spend some of their lives in the water. They have thick, chocolate brown fur, small heads and little black eyes. Their ears that are about an inch long, and they have a pointed nose with whiskers. Their partially webbed toes help them swim.

When breeding in the spring, mink have a little of 3 to 6 kits in a den made in a hollowed-out log or stump, or under tree roots. The kits are born hairless, but they grow hair and open their eyes after about 25 days. They are weaned at 5 to 6 weeks, but stay with their mom until sometime in the fall. The mother will stay close to her den, usually about 30 acres, while the male will roam twice as far and interact with other dens.

If you see one running across a road or in a field it is probably traveling. If you spot a mink sneaking on its stomach it is probably stalking its prey. They’re carnivores that eat anything that is easily captured in the water or on land and they are nocturnal. They’re fierce fighters and can attack prey much larger than their own body size.

Sources: Conservancy of Southwest Florida, National Park Service

You’ll often see them in flocks on the beach here in Naples — I did recently on a cold day and they all stood with their orange beaks facing the wind.

Here are some basic facts about royal terns:

Appearance: Royal terns have a slender orange bill, a short, forked tail, white feathers and some dark feathers in the wingtips. Their cap is all black while they’re breeding, otherwise it is a band around the back of their head and their forehead is white. The feathers on the back of the head are shaggy.

Range: You’ll find royal terns on the Northern coast of South America and in the Caribbean year round. In the summers, they head to the Northeastern U.S. to breed, and in the winter they’re along the coasts of North, South and  Central America.

Food: Their favorite food is fish and shrimp.

Habitat: You’ll find them along the coast.

Nesting and chicks: They nest on the ground on islands by scraping an area on the beach and then going to the bathroom on teh edges of the nest, creating a rim that hardens and prevents flooding. Within one day of hatching, the chicks leave the nest and gather in a group with other chicks in a group called a crache. In a colony, thousands of chicks will be together, but the parents know exactly which chick is theirs.

Status: Royal terns are a species of “least concern” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Behavior: To hunt, royal terns fly over the water with their orange bill pointed down, and then plunge headfirst into the water to catch their food.

Sources: Cornell University Lab of Ornithology