Green sea turtles love to feed and nest in the shallow waters of Laguna Madre, a hypersaline lagoon and one of the seven major estuaries along the Texas coast from near Corpus Christi to South Padre Island. But during cold snaps, shallow waters mean water temperatures drop faster, causing sea turtles to become stunned in a hurry. Such an event took place in February 2021, when the severe cold front that rattled Texas caused the largest cold stunning of sea turtles in ever recorded worldwide.
sea turtle Inc.
Open Aug. 13-May 31, Tue-Sun 10 a.m.-4 p.m; June 1-Aug. 12, Tue-Sun 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
6617 Padre Blvd., South Padre Island. 956-761-4511
seaturtleinc.org
A cold stun event occurs when water temperatures drop suddenly below 50 degrees, resulting in sea turtles—which are ectothermic and cannot regulate their body temperature—becoming lethargic. They can’t swim and eventually float on the surface in a catatonic state, making them incapable of lifting their heads to breathe; plus, they’re vulnerable to being struck by boats or killed by predators.
During that record-breaking winter, as the temperature continued to drop, marine biologists, volunteers, and turtle lovers along the coast got to work. On South Padre alone, Sea Turtle Inc. rescued 5,556 sea turtles over eight days as water temperatures stayed below the 50-degree threshold. Efforts were strained like never before: a typical cold stun event sees 200-300 sea turtle rescues.
Sea turtles traveled to Sea Turtle Inc., a nonprofit sea turtle rescue, rehabilitation center, and education complex, and the South Padre Island Convention Center, both of which were without power. Floor space in the facilities was at max capacity, with blue kiddie pools and makeshift pallets full of stunned sea turtles trying to warm up.
While all this was unfolding, the vision for Sea Turtle Inc’s new sea turtle hospital was in the works, but this historic event shifted the designs for the project dramatically. “We went back to the plans and realized we had to have an indoor facility, and it had to be way bigger,” says Wendy Knight, CEO of Sea Turtle Inc. “The original plans were to build an outdoor facility, but after that 2021 cold stun, everything changed.”
Almost four years later, on March 1, the dream of the indoor facility comes to fruition in the form of the largest fully enclosed sea turtle hospital in the world. The 15,000-square-foot hospital adds to the 20,000 square feet of Sea Turtle Inc’s education complex, amphitheater, and museum, which opened in 2018. The new hospital sits exactly where the old 400-square-foot hospital stood and will triple the capacity for sea turtle patients. Currently, in the temporary outdoor hospital that has housed sea turtle patients for 20 months since the old hospital was torn down, the team can only care for about 25 sea turtles at a time. The new hospital will allow them to care for 100 sick and injured sea turtles at once.
Walking into the new hospital, you see 13 large tanks that will be able to hold multiple sea turtle patients. As you walk around the tanks, you’ll learn how the turtles got injured, how they got here, how they’re cared for, and how they’re released. “If they’re here, we believe they can be rehabilitated and released into the wild again,” Knight says.
Digital displays throughout the hospital show live sea turtle releases in real time to visitors, and educational displays along the walls also walk you through the six biggest threats to sea turtles: jetties, boat strikes, entanglement, disease, predation, and cold stun events.
Behind the tanks is the cold stun room, which has a large, Lucite garage door that enables the team to shut off the room in an active cold stun event while remaining open to visitors. “Right now, when a cold stun happens and we get more than 200 turtles coming in, we have to close Sea Turtle Inc. to the public, because our entire floor space is covered in sea turtles,” Knight says. “But now with the new hospital’s cold stun room and overflow in the surgical suite, we’ll have plenty of space, and we can stay open to the public so they can see the work we do during a cold stun.” The walls inside the cold stun room tell the story of the 2021 cold stun, with four TVs showing news footage and volunteer efforts.
Continue walking along the back wall and you’ll find the nutrition station, where nutrition specialists work behind a glass wall prepping the sea turtles’ food, which includes green veggies, like lettuce and bell peppers, and seafood such as shrimp and crabs, curating a variety for each turtle’s needs. Watch as the team preps their medicine and special diets, just like a regular hospital. “It’s visible to anybody that’s on property,” Knight notes.
Just beyond the nutrition station is the surgical suite, where the only fully dedicated sea turtle CT machine sits behind another large glass panel, allowing the 80,000 annual student visitors and more than a 250,000 other annual guests to see up close how a turtle gets examined. The CT machine is a game changer for the nonprofit, as the team currently must drive an hour and a half to McAllen to use a CT machine that’s also used for human patients, then make the drive back with the turtles. “It’s very stressful for the sea turtles to drive that far, so this eliminates that altogether,” says Knight. Patient tables are also visible in the surgical room, where you’ll see turtles getting therapy and surgical care.
On the second floor, which is not open to the public, intern quarters provide living spaces for the six to eight interns that Sea Turtle Inc. hires from April to September. Right now, they’re being housed off-site in apartments; these new quarters will allow them to stay on-site, where their duties include helping with research and the sea turtle nesting program. The research center, also upstairs, has room for 20 cubicles and researchers, positioning the nonprofit for more grant opportunities. Inside, the team studies diseases that impact sea turtles, such as fibropapillomatosis, or FP, one of the most common diseases in sea turtles that isn’t well understood, plus parasitic diseases and sea turtle procreation.
Sea turtles are vital for optimal ocean health, helping with nutrient cycling, providing habitats for other marine organisms, maintaining marine habitats and sustaining healthy food webs. Yet human-caused threats, like pollution, habitat destruction, and marine debris push sea turtles closer to extinction. “Our mission is to create a world of thriving sea turtle populations,” says Knight. “So, any research that happens here will be directly related to that.”
Admission to Sea Turtle Inc grants you access to the new sea turtle hospital, plus the amphitheater, education complex, sea turtle resident center, gift shop, and museum.
