How a Marathon motel became The Turtle Hospital

Richie Moretti came to Marathon to fish, then kept finding injured sea turtles, and that unlikely detour changed a roadside property into one of the Florida Keys’ most recognizable institutions. In 1986, he converted a small 1950s-era motel and the former adult club next door into The Turtle Hospital, a place that now sits at the center of Monroe County’s sea-turtle story.

From Keys oddity to rescue mission

Moretti’s connection to turtles began long before Marathon. His fascination reportedly started as a child while fishing in New Jersey ponds, a detail that helps explain why the project grew from a quirky idea into a lifelong commitment. By the time he settled in the Keys, he had become the kind of hands-on operator who could see both the tourism value and the conservation need in the same stretch of Overseas Highway.

The Turtle Hospital is described as the world’s first state-licensed veterinary hospital for sea turtles, and Visit Florida Keys says Moretti has rescued, rehabilitated and released between 2,000 and 3,000 turtles. That scale matters because it shows how a single local business became a lasting part of the region’s wildlife response system, not just a novelty stop for visitors heading through Marathon.

What happens inside the hospital

The facility treats the injuries that come with life in a busy island chain: boat strikes, fishing-line entanglement, plastic ingestion and fibropapilloma tumors. Official hospital accounts also describe patients with old boat strikes, monofilament tangles, embedded hooks, buoyancy problems and spinal damage, which makes the work feel less like a display and more like a running emergency room for marine life.

Inside, the hospital uses an operating room, holding tanks and a 100,000-gallon saltwater pool to move turtles from triage to recovery. VISIT FLORIDA also notes that the operation has a full-time staff of 18 and three ambulances, a detail that underscores how much logistics sit behind the public tours and photo stops. The public may come for the experience, but the institution functions like a real medical rescue network.

The Turtle Hospital cares for at least five sea-turtle species found in its rehab work: green, hawksbill, Kemp’s ridley, leatherback and loggerhead turtles. That range reflects the breadth of the threat landscape in the Keys, where injured turtles can come from channels, reefs, back bays and heavily trafficked boating routes all in the same season.

Why Marathon keeps this story alive

Monroe County marked the hospital’s 40th anniversary in 2026, with Monroe County Mayor Michelle Lincoln and the Board of County Commissioners recognizing the institution’s place in local life. That civic nod matters because The Turtle Hospital is now part of how Marathon presents itself to the world: as a community where conservation, tourism and local identity overlap.

The hospital also became a visitor draw in its own right. Its public-tour model lets people see recovering turtles up close, turning a rescue center into a place where education is built into the experience. Recent anniversary programming has included behind-the-scenes tours, vintage photos and community events with the Greater Marathon Chamber of Commerce, which helped make the milestone feel like a Keys-wide celebration rather than a private institutional anniversary.

That public-facing role has turned affection for sea turtles into something more durable than roadside charm. In the same way the Keys sell sunsets, bridges and bridge traffic stories, Marathon now has a signature wildlife institution that visitors actively seek out, and locals can point to with pride.

A place shaped by the sea-turtle season

The hospital’s relevance rises and falls with the calendar in a very specific way. In the Florida Keys, sea turtle nesting season runs from April 15 through October 31, and hatchlings usually emerge about two months after nesting. Artificial lighting can pull those hatchlings away from the water, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says that light causes thousands of hatchling deaths each year in Florida.

That seasonal pressure is one reason the hospital’s work never really goes out of date. Nearly 90 percent of U.S. sea-turtle nesting occurs in Florida, and the state says loggerhead nesting rates have dropped more than 40 percent over the last decade. For Monroe County, that means turtle rescue is not an occasional feel-good story, but part of a broader conservation picture tied to development, boating, fishing and shoreline lighting.

Florida Fish and Wildlife also says marine-turtle activities must be authorized under state permits, and it directs people to state-permitted facilities for turtle viewing and rehabilitation. That framework helps explain why The Turtle Hospital has become such a visible model: it sits at the intersection of regulated wildlife care, public education and the practical realities of living on a chain of islands where turtles still nest, hatch and get hurt.

The local payoff

What began as a peculiar use for a Marathon motel became something much bigger than a clever reuse of property. The Turtle Hospital helped define the Keys as a place where a roadside attraction can also be a serious conservation institution, where a visitor stop can carry the weight of rescue medicine, and where a community can build identity around protecting a threatened animal.

Moretti’s path from New Jersey ponds to Marathon rescue work is the kind of improbable Florida story that feels made for the Keys. In Monroe County, it also became a lasting one: a nonprofit hospital, a tourist destination and a global sea-turtle brand, all growing from the same small stretch of road.