Families, children and spectators stood along the Galveston shore with wide smiles and loud cheers as they watched volunteers carry 102 sea turtles, one by one, into the Gulf on Thursday afternoon.
"It was amazing. It was really amazing," spectator Melodie Thompson said. "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 came all the way from Clear Lake to see the spectacle.
"It’s a feel-good experience. You can hear people talk about it, but it’s nothing like experiencing it,” said Christopher Marshall, director of the Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research, which is the federally permitted lead organization for sea turtle rescue, recovery and rehabilitation on the upper and middle Texas coast.
The sea turtles were returned home after being rescued from dangerous conditions last weekend, when a winter storm hit the Houston region.
When water temperatures drop below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, turtles can go into a coma-like state, called cold-stunning. In this state, turtles stop feeding and swimming, float to the surface and become vulnerable to boats and other predators.
"With the prevailing north winds, they get blown into the marshes and can get frostbite, pneumonia and actually predated upon," Marshall said.
A lot of times, the turtles attempt to escape bay waters, which become cold at a faster rate, and try to make it to the warmer Gulf waters. However, Marshall said sometimes the turtles can't get there in time or become trapped trying to exit the bay.
This is where the volunteers come in.
The Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research mobilized a corps of about 200 volunteers who went into the cold, walked the shoreline to marshes and picked up cold-stunned sea turtles after last weekend's winter weather. Marshall said the volunteers were able to rescue 152 sea turtles along the upper Texas coast over a few days.
The crews put the turtles into sleds and brought them back to the sea turtle rehabilitation hospital on theTexas A&M Galveston campusto warm them back up.
"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 today," Marshall said at Thursday's release.
Since the Gulf waters are warmer than the colder bays where the turtles came from, Marshall said the sea turtles will be protected, even as cooler temperatures are expected to arrive again this weekend.
Marshall advised those who come across a cold-stunned sea turtle to refrain from touching it and instead call thesea turtle hotlineso responders can rescue the turtle.
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