KOBE, Japan (Reuters) - Life looked grim for Yu, a loggerhead
turtle, when she washed up in a Japanese fishing net five years
ago, her front flippers shredded after a brutal encounter with a
shark.
Now keepers at an aquarium in the western Japanese city of Kobe are
looking for a high-tech solution that will allow the 25-year-old
turtle to swim normally again after years of labor and 27 models of
prosthetic fins behind them without achieving their goal.
Yu, weighing 103 kg (227 pounds) and 82 cm (32 inches) long, first
came to the attention of keepers at the Suma Aqualife Park in Kobe
after she was rushed there from a port on the southern island of
Shikoku in 2008.
"She was in a really bad way. More than half her fins were gone and
she was bleeding, her body covered with shark bites," said Naoki
Kamezaki, the park's director general.
After nursing the loggerhead - an endangered species - back to
health, keepers enlisted the help of researchers and a local
prosthetics-maker to get her swimming again.
Early versions of prosthetic flippers caused her pain or fell off
quickly, and with money short, Kamezaki said he sometimes felt like
packing it in.
"There have been times I wanted to give up and just fix her up the
best we can and throw her back in," he told Reuters. "Then if
luck's on her side she'll be fine, if not, she'll get eaten and
that's just life. The way of nature, I suppose."
The latest version - made of rubber and fixed together with a
material used in diving wetsuits - was unveiled on February 11 and
proclaimed a success, with Yu swimming smoothly around her
tank.
But on Friday, one flipper slipped out as soon as she hit the
water, forcing keepers back to the laboratory again.
Though Kamezaki admits that it's unlikely Yu will ever live a
normal turtle life, he still has hopes.
"My dream for her is that one day she can use her prosthetic fins
to swim to the surface, walk about, and dig a proper hole to lay
her eggs in," Kamezaki said.
"When her children hatch, well, I just feel that would make all the
trauma in her life worthwhile."