Featured Image Credit: WJHG
By Kira Krall
All reptiles including sea turtles are exothermic, or “cold-blooded.” Exothermic animals get their body temperature from external heat sources like the air or water. They don’t make their own body heat from their food like endothermic, or “warm-blooded”, animals do. Our shelled exothermic ocean friends can tolerate a wide range of body temperatures, but the recent cold snaps freezing the nation over are causing health problems for sea turtles.
When water temperatures reach 50° Fahrenheit, sea turtles can get “cold-stunned.” Their hearts have trouble beating and their limbs have trouble moving. If the cold spell doesn’t move on quickly, the turtles could end up suffering fatal consequences.
Gulf World Marine Institute in the Florida Panhandle is one of many turtle hospitals in the southeast. They treat about 30 cold-stunned turtles each year. The 2018 winter season alone has brought in 850 frozen patients. Many of these turtles were found in Saint Joe Bay, where responders and volunteers scooped up the cold-paralyzed reptiles by the dozens.
Rehab Center Director Secret Holmes reported that the patients arrived in a slow trickle at first, but her team ended up with over 800 turtles in just three days. The chelonians were checked for any injuries and placed in kiddie holding pools until it’s safe to release them back into the wild.
Reports of record-breaking cold stunned sea turtles are popping up all over the country. The South Carolina Aquarium is treating turtle refugees from the Northeast, Clearwater Marine Aquarium has had 65, and the Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network recorded 2,100 cold-stunned turtles along the Texas coast. Other animals affected by this cold snap include thresher sharks, four of which were found frozen solid on Cape Cod’s beaches this month.