After 18 months of care, turtle found with its stomach full of plastic returned into the wild

Tama, a green sea turtle who made headlines after being found with his stomach full of plastic in the summer of 2022, was recently released into the wild after 18 months of intensive care in an Australian wildlife hospital.

Tama’s story is not ordinary, even when it comes to animal rehabilitation.

When he was admitted to the hospital as a hatchling in July 2022, Tama’s stomach was full of plastic.

Despite being only a few days old, he had ingested so much plastic that traces were found in his excrement for six days.

This suggests “that the food that he took in the first couple of days that he was alive and out in the ocean was plastic,” Tama’s carer Sarah Male, from Taronga Zoo in Sydney, told Storyful. She said plastic of different shapes and size was found, suggesting the turtle had eaten multiple plastic items during his short life.

When he was found on a beach in Bondi, Tama was lying on his back with a flipper and part of his shell missing. At the time, the turtle was so small that he fit into the palm of a hand, and he was in rough shape.

The turtle was nursed back to health over a period of 18 months and was released into the wild on Dec. 4 in Sydney Harbour.