By JULIE KELLER
Special to the PRESS
On Friday, the temperature of the waters dropped below 50 degrees. With these low water temperatures, Sea Turtle Inc of South Padre Island rallied together their team of volunteers and its large community support team to help out the sea turtles of our island’s waters.
“Sea turtles are cold blooded animals. They use the water temperature to regulate their body temperature”, explains Wendy Knight, Chief Executive Officer of Sea Turtle Inc. Knight goes on to explain “the quickest way to resolve a cold stun is just to give them enough time to re-regulate their body temperature. As the air temperature and their body temperature gets back to normal they start moving around, we give them a medical evaluation and a swim test. Usually within 48 hours or so they are ready to get back in the water.”
With the cold stun over the weekend Sea Turtle Inc. helped out 80 sea turtle patients. 77 of those 80 were ready for the public release event on Wednesday afternoon. Three were still being kept for observation. The staff and volunteers then work together to get from the hospital at Sea Turtle Inc. to the waters of the ocean. Each sea turtle was then carried individually by the amazing staff and volunteers out to the waters where they could then swim back home. After the turtle release Sea Turtle Inc. continues to patrol and observe the area to make sure no turtles came back to shore.
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