Last Thursday, over 100 sea turtles were safely released back into Gulf waters after experiencing the effects of cold-stunning. Here’s what you need to know.
102 sea turtles were safely released back into Gulf waters Jan. 29. The turtles were previously rescued last weekend from frigid bay waters during the recent winter storm. Volunteers carried each turtle one-by-one into the Gulf as spectators looked on from the shore. One resident who witnessed the release, Melodie Thompson, spoke with Houston Public Media about the surprisingly emotional experience.
“It was amazing. It was really amazing. There was a lady next to me who was crying and they said, ‘Oh, are you OK?’ She said, ‘I just love sea turtles so much. I wanted to see this,’” Thompson recalled.
The Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research’s director, Christopher Marshall, expressed similarly joyful sentiments.
“It’s a feel-good experience. You can hear people talk about it, but it’s nothing like experiencing it,” he told the outlet.
The center specializes in rescuing, recovering, and rehabilitating sea turtles along the middle and upper coast of Texas. And when water temperatures dropped drastically during the storm, the organization knew they needed to spring into action to protect these special creatures.
Marshall explained that turtles can suffer from cold-stunning when water temperatures fall under 50 degrees Fahrenheit. They can no longer swim or eat, and float helplessly in the water until the effects wear off. This puts them at huge health and safety risk, as Marshall said, “with the prevailing north winds, they get blown into the marshes and can get frostbite, pneumonia and [are] actually predated upon.” Sea turtles will often attempt to make it to warmer areas of the Gulf when this starts to happen, but they’re not always fortunate enough to make it before the cold-stunning sets in.
Thankfully, volunteers from the Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research were there to help.
How the turtles were brought in and rehabilitated
Around 200 people volunteered to assist the Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research in rescuing stunned sea turtles along the Texas coast. Volunteers meticulously walked between marshes and the shore seeking out reptiles in need. 152 turtles were eventually recovered, and they were transported via sled to Texas A&M’s sea turtle rehabilitation hospital, located on the Galveston campus.
Once there, the sea turtles were gradually warmed up until the cold-stunning wore off. Christopher Marshall said of the process, “They brought them to our short-term sea turtle hospital on the [Texas A&M Galveston] campus, and then yesterday our partners at the Houston Zoo gave them a health check, they got a swim test, and they got cleared for release.”
Though colder temperatures are expected again this coming weekend, Marshall said the sea turtles will be safe this time around because the Gulf waters they were released into are warmer than the bay waters they were originally pulled from. He said that if anyone happened to come across a cold-stunned sea turtle, though, they should refrain from touching it and call a special hotline immediately so properly trained responders can safely remove the turtle and bring them back to the rehabilitation hospital.
That hotline number? 1-866-TURTLE-5. For more information, click here.
This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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