Ragtime, a rehabilitated loggerhead sea turtle, crawls into the ocean on the shores of the Beach Club at The Boca Raton. The turtle spent months recovering under the care of sea turtle specialists Whitney Crowder (far right) and Samantha Clark at the Palm Beach Zoo after being found tangled in fishing line. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Steve Plunkett
“Ragtime,” a 100-pound loggerhead sea turtle, lumbered down the beach in Boca Raton, paused to take in the watching crowd of animal lovers, then swam off into the Atlantic Ocean.
The turtle’s public release, choreographed by former Gumbo Limbo Nature Center employee Whitney Crowder and fellow Boca Raton resident Samantha Clark, was the first in the city since June 2025. That’s when the nonprofit Coastal Stewards group abruptly shut down its turtle rehabilitation unit at Gumbo Limbo.
“It’s been a while,” Clark said after Ragtime’s Aug. 7 release at the Beach Club at The Boca Raton. “We love celebrating them and their journeys.”
“We’re back in business, baby!” said Crowder, who used to coordinate Gumbo Limbo’s rehab unit but lost her job in early 2023 as turtle care at the city-operated nature center was transitioned to the now-defunct Coastal Stewards.
Later that year, Crowder and Clark, who spent eight years caring for turtle patients at the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, started a new nonprofit to tend to ailing and injured turtles, Sea Turtle Care and Conservation Specialists. They were joined by Dr. Maria Chadam, Gumbo Limbo’s former on-call veterinarian.
In 2025, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission gave the nonprofit a permit to give veterinary care to ailing sea turtles. The team, which has shortened its name to Sea Turtle Specialists, rents space at the Palm Beach Zoo, not accessible to the public, where it has two 2,000-gallon tanks for turtle rehab.
“The space includes a complete AZA-accredited hospital suite, state of the art hospital equipment, necropsy space, food preparation and storage,” Crowder wrote in the FWC permit application.
AZA is the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
Ragtime’s saga began off the Deerfield Beach Pier on June 9 when the sub-adult loggerhead was accidentally caught by a fisherman. Ragtime was not hooked but had become entangled in fishing line.
Although the turtle appeared healthy on arrival at the zoo, radiographs showed a slowed digestive tract packed with crab shell fragments, while blood work indicated the animal had not eaten in some time and was fighting a secondary infection. Ragtime was diagnosed as being in the early stages of Debilitated Turtle Syndrome.
The team estimated the turtle’s age at 20 to 25 years old. It received treatment to heal the gastrointestinal tract, pass the accumulated crab shell fragments and fight the secondary infection. Ragtime also received antiparasitic medication since a debilitated sea turtle can harbor a parasite that lives in the cardiovascular system and can impair its ability to absorb nutrients.
Crowder said the FWC gave her nonprofit a range of suitable locations for Ragtime’s release before it decided on the Beach Club at The Boca Raton.
“We wanted to find a site that was both appropriate for the release and away from the area where Ragtime had originally stranded,” she said. “We also wanted a location that we could access safely with our support team and, most importantly, a community partner that would be supportive of our mission and help us create a safe environment for Ragtime’s return to the ocean. The Beach Club at The Boca Raton was incredibly supportive and helped make that possible.”
Crowder said she and Clark have divided their responsibilities as the nonprofit has grown. Crowder focuses on community engagement, developing local corporate partnerships, fundraising and grant writing. Clark leads the medical program, oversees patient care, manages the website and online store at seaturtlespecialists.org and is the creative talent behind all of their merchandise.
Sea Turtle Specialists operates the only sea turtle hospital in the 100-mile gap between Juno Beach and ZooMiami in Miami-Dade County. It has released three other sea turtles, from Flagler, Volusia and St. Johns counties, in non-publicized events.
“Many people still don’t realize that we’re here,” Crowder said. “Our long-term vision is to establish a permanent, public-facing sea turtle hospital farther south, closer to where the majority of our patients strand.”
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