Plummeting temperatures in November and December left dozens of young green sea turtles out in the cold, quite literally.
Some of those turtles, reports Melissa Gaskill for the Alcalde, were rescued and taken to our Animal Rehabilitation Keep at the UT Marine Science Institiute in Port Aransas. Gaskill reports:
As of Dec. 15, 315 cold-stunned sea turtles had been documented on the Texas coast, 265 of which made it to a rehabilitation facility. One hundred of them went to the ARK.
Most of the turtles were released on Dec. 4.
Tony Amos, the ARK director, is still worried about other cold fronts.
“The water temperature is still on a downward trend,” he says, and hovering at 52 degrees. With 50 degrees likely fatal to a sea turtle, that may mean holding on to these animals a little longer. ARK staff collects sea lettuce from nearby rocks and jetties to feed the herbivorous green sea turtles, supplemented by other greens and squid bought in bulk. Amos and his team already have their hands full, but, he says, if another cold front leaves more stunned turtles in its wake,“We’ll find places to put them.”
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