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The Seattle Aquarium has been helping after it was found stranded on Shi Shi Beach in Washington.

Dr. Caitlin Hadfield, the senior veterinarian of the aquarium, told Seattle’s Morning News that the turtle — named Shi Shi for the beach where she was found — had a body temperature of just 48 degrees when she should have been around 75 degrees.

“This turtle ended up much further north than it should have been, in water that is much too cold for it, and overtime, it just got colder and colder and everything shot of shut down. It wasn’t able to swim or get around, and ended up essentially stranding on the beach where it was very lucky to be found by a member of the Makah tribe and then rescued from there,” Hadfield described.

It’s not yet known for sure where Shi Shi is from, but Hadfield says she’s likely from the coast of Mexico. Hadfield said they will check the turtle’s genetics once she is feeling better.

“Shi Shi’s care has been very intensive,” Hadfield said. “When these animals come in this cold, really nothing inside of them is working properly. What you cannot do is just warm them up because that is going to inevitably cause problems that will lead to the death of the animal. So you have to warm up them very slowly while supporting essential bodily functions.”

“That means literally making sure the oxygen is getting in and the carbon dioxide is getting out of the turtle, and then trying to get that heartbeat back up so the blood is starting to flow around again,” she explained. “So bit by bit, each of those organs come back, effectively back online, and the animal starts to deal with all those consequences of being so very cold.”

Shi Shi has shown a really great turnaround from when she first came in, Hadfield said, which is very promising.

“For the most part, it’s been fairly gradual improvement. [There were a] few moments there where she showed some deterioration, but in general, she has been improving. It seems likely that if she keeps on this course, we’re hopeful that she can get over the sort of next round of her recovery,” Hadfield said.

“If that is the case, then the next step is to transport her down to a much warmer climate, that would be down in San Diego with our partners at SeaWorld there,” she continued. “Then they would work on conditioning this animal so that it can go back into the wild at the warmest time of the year, which is going to be, obviously, next summer.”

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