Texas has recently been hit by an extremely cold weather and while the freezing temperatures doesn’t seem to disappear soon, it turns out that not only humans are affected, but wildlife as well and mostly the sea turtles.
The state’s coastline has been flooded with countless sea turtles as a result of the extremely low temperatures. These delicate creatures need warm waters to survive but since this highly improbable cold wave hit the southern Texas, their live is in real danger. Fortunately, they got some unexpected help!
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So far thousands of cold-stunned sea turtles have been rescued, mostly in South Padre Island by some local volunteers. Turtles are cold-blooded creatures, therefore they are unable to regulate their body temperature by themselves, so when the water temperatures drops too much, they are unable to move or swim so the risk of drowning is extremely high.
Thankfully, some kind locals noticed the danger and they all jumped in to save as many turtles as possible. A series of now viral photos of cars full with rescued sea turtles emerged online to show just how devoted these volunteers are to save these hopeless creatures. A rescue organization named Sea Turtle, Inc. , alone is sheltering over 4,500 rescued turtles and their numbers continue to grow as volunteers work tirelessly to provide shelter for sea turtles.
My mom is retired, & she spends her winters volunteering at a sea turtle rescue center in south Texas. The cold snap is stunning the local turtles & they’re doing a lot of rescues. She sent me this photo today of the back of her Subaru. It’s *literally* turtles all the way down. pic.twitter.com/xaDRNjLDoQ
— Lara (@lara_hand) February 15, 2021
“The love and support of people who just want to help things that can’t help themselves is overwhelming,” said Wendy Knight – Executive Director at the Sea Turtle Inc. The folks efforts to save the helpless turtles is even more to appreciate as many locals have also been affected by the winter storm. “We have exacerbated a once-in-a-few-decade experience by a holdback of the power grid and a holdback of our electric support,” Wendy added.
Here’s how the Sea Turtle Inc facility looks like right now:
Source: upworthy