Central Florida Wildlife Center Inc.

08/02/2026

🐢 Collaboration in Conservation 🐢
At Central Florida Wildlife Center, we know that great rehab work doesn’t happen in a bubble, it happens in community. This week we were so grateful to have Kim from Swamp Girl Adventures Reptile Rehabilitation stop by to trade patients, lend her expert eye on a few of our current cases, and help us collect blood samples from Sammy, our resident Aldabra tortoise!

Every rehabber brings a different set of experiences, species specialties, and instincts to the table. When we open our doors to each other to share knowledge, second opinions, and even patients, everybody wins. Especially the animals in our care.

Huge thanks to Kim for the visit, the hands-on help, and the reminder that this work is always better together. 💚

Gopher Tortoise Alliance

06/23/2026

06/06/2026

Patient Release: Bubbles 🎉🐢

This Gopher Tortoise (Bubbles) was brought to us by a caring citizen who saw her get hit by a car. Not only was her shell fractured, she also had a broken leg.

Oftentimes with this level of injury, the tortoise may face euthanasia. However, we were able to triage and get her to our mentor at Central Florida Wildlife Center quickly where she performed a late night shell repair. Luckily the shell did its job protecting the vital organs!

We weren’t sure how things would turn out for Bubbles but we were happy to see her healing and getting better. And this past week, she was finally ready for release!! 🥳 we fitted her with a tracker and sent her on her way.

This is what can happen when a caring person makes the time to help an animal. By getting her to us instead of just passing by, the finder saved her life and the lives of the other tortoises she may create!

05/27/2026

We would like to extend our sincere appreciation to Dr. Bohannon and the staff at Valrico Animal Clinic for taking the time and care to remove eggs from a tortoise that was fatally injured after being struck by a car.

Because of your compassion and dedication, we were able to extract the eggs she was trying to lay when she was struck by a car.. Your kindness and efforts during such a heartbreaking situation mean more than words can express.

We appreciate you so much. Thank you for the incredible work you do for wildlife and our community.

05/27/2026

We had the pleasure of releasing for rehabilitated water turtles back into the wild where they belong recently. They were so excited to be released that we were only able to get a picture of one. Stay out of the road you guys!

05/23/2026

WATCH OUT FOR TURTLES ON THE ROAD PEOPLE! 🐢🚗🚙

Turtles and tortoises are crossing roads more frequently now because they are looking for spots to lay their eggs!

Please keep your eyes out on the road and if you see one and can pull over SAFELY, you can pick it up and take it across the road in the direction it was going.

If you see an injured tortoise or turtle, get it into a box or bin and contact us right away!

Tis the season to keep a box in your car for this reason!

05/21/2026

Patient Intake:
This is new gopher tortoise patient, Tangle.

Tangle is a great reminder to pick up your trash and any other litter that you see lying around in nature. You may save an animal by doing so!

This tortoise was found by a Good Samaritan who noticed she was tied up in some twine. He immediately removed the twine and noticed that her leg was swollen and she wasn’t using it normally. There was a visible injury where the twine had been on her leg. He contacted Wild Fl Rescue who transported the tortoise to us for care.

We gave her some pain relief and got her to our rehab mentor Amanda Ebenhack at Central Florida Wildlife Center for assessment. We were thrilled to see that she is able to move her leg and were hopeful that her mobility will improve.

Sometimes cases like this lead to amputations if the nerves and blood flow to the leg are overly damaged. In this case, we are hoping that doesn’t happen!

Tangle will receive meds, laser therapy and physical therapy in our care to help get her leg functioning. We will reassess in a couple weeks!

05/19/2026

Patient release! 🥳
This little mud turtle was chewed on by a dog but luckily the owner saved it and got it to us for treatment. She’s been in our care recovering and is finally ready to be on her way! Once she got her bearings she wasted no time and was following the little minnows.

Turtle and tortoise releases are never as fast or flashy as bird or mammal releases, but we still enjoy them very much and hope you do too!! 🥰

04/29/2026

This Gopher Tortoise came in through Gopher Tortoise Alliance last week in very rough shape. She had sustained a big fracture on her carapace and another smaller one on her plastron.

Unfortunately by the time she was found her injuries were old and maggots had set in. 🤢 I’m sparing you the intake pics!

We got her wounds all flushed out and bandaged up so she could start healing and now they’re cleaned up, we’re putting on some brackets to stabilize the fracture.

She’s still not out of the woods yet but we are really hoping she can recover. Send all the good vibes!! We’re calling her “Maggie” 🐛🐛🐛

Thank you Environmental Learning Center in Vero Beach for getting her to us!

04/28/2026