SeaWorld Sends Rescue Crew To Corpus Christi To Help Cold-Stunned Turtles

Featured Image Credit: KHou.com
By Sarah Sharkey

Cold stunning has been a huge problem for sea turtles in the south lately. The plunge to freezing temperatures comes without a warning and shocks sea turtles. The cold slows down their hate rates and negatively affects their circulation, causing them to become lethargic. Some of the turtles show signs of shock and others can even catch pneumonia.

Cold stunning usually occurs when the temperature is below 50 degrees, the weather has been in the 30s for much of the winter.

Image Credit: Joy Hill courtesy FWC

Rescuers have come to help save the sea turtles of Corpus Christi, Texas survive the cold snap. A team from Sea World San Antonio traveled to the coast to look for affected sea turtles. Christopher Havel and Mark Telzrow were two of the experts on the team.

The crew started looking for stunned sea turtles in Laguna Madre. This location is known to house feeding green sea turtles. They were able to find over 50 turtles that were in need of help or already dead.

It is hard to watch these turtles struggle with the cold. Havel had this to say about this plight among turtles, “Warm-blooded species wouldn’t be able to handle it. You stay in water that’s below 70 degrees for too long and you get hypothermia, so they can withstand it better than us, but still not on days like this.”

Hopefully, the weather will warm up soon for these stunned sea turtles.

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