A BIG thank you to our neighbors at The Thacher School, and AZA partners at the Santa Barbara Zoo for saving our endangered female Chinese big-headed turtle!

Dr. Kris Finch donated some of her vet med class time to allow for a turtle anatomy lesson. We were able to compare this to their horse/mammalian curriculum and medicine. The X-Ray facility was used to identify a broken egg inside one of our turtles, a potentially life-threatening condition.

An emergency endoscopic surgery was performed by Dr. Julie Barnes at the Santa Barbara Zoo. The successful surgery has our rare turtle in recovery back at our conservation center!