Endangered sea turtles stunned by cold water saved at Texas aquarium

Record ID: 1728571

  • Title: Endangered sea turtles stunned by cold water saved at Texas aquarium
  • Date: 8th June 2023
  • Summary: ANIMAL CARE ASSISTANT FATIMA SALINAS REMOVING JUVENILE KEMP’S RIDLEY SEA TURTLE FROM CT SCANNER VARIOUS OF HEAD VETERINARIAN CARRIE ULLMER AND ANIMAL CARE ASSISTANT FATIMA SALINAS EXAMINING A DIFFERENT JUVENILE KEMP’S RIDLEY SEA TURTLE (SOUNDBITE)(English) DR. CARRIE ULLMER, HEAD VETERINARIAN OF THE TEXAS STATE AQUARIUM’S PORT OF CORPUS CHRISTI CENTER FOR WILDLIFE RE
  • Embargoed: 22nd June 2023 09:48
  • Keywords: coastal wildlife corpus christi green sea turtle gulf of mexico kemp's ridley sea turtle marine wildlife sea turtle rescue sea turtles texas gulf
  • Location: CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS, UNITED STATES
  • City: CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS, UNITED STATES
  • Country: US
  • Topics: Environment,North America,Nature/Wildlife
  • Reuters ID: LVA005771205062023RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Erratic weather patterns in Texas are threatening marine wildlife, with a new coastal rescue center in Corpus Christi rescuing and rehabilitating sea turtles, manatees, dolphins, birds and other animals before releasing them into the wild.
    The Texas State Aquarium’s Port of Corpus Christi Center for Wildlife Rescue, which opened in March, is the largest rescue center for sea turtles in the United States and operates the only CT scanner dedicated to wildlife rescue in the state.
    The 26,000-square-foot hospital located along the Gulf Coast allows visitors to watch medical checkups and even surgeries on marine animals through multiple windows.
    The center has already responded to multiple cold-stunning events, in which a sharp, prolonged drop in air and water temperatures immobilizes sea turtles in shallow waters like lagoons and bays, preventing them from reaching warmer water. Like other reptiles, sea turtles are limited in how much they can regulate and control their core body temperatures.
    On April 20, a juvenile Kemp’s ridley sea turtle recovering from pneumonia was scanned by the center’s CT scanner. It is the smallest species of sea turtle and most critically endangered sea turtle in the world, according to the National Park Service. This individual turtle was one of five rescued in January from a New England cold-stunning event, according to the wildlife center’s head veterinarian Dr. Carrie Ullmer.
    "So we released three just recently and the two that we have left are just still struggling against some residual pneumonia," Ullmer said. "He's actually been off treatment for a little bit. We want to make sure that there is no recurrence of his abnormalities on CT scan today.”
    Ullmer said cold-stunning events cause sea turtles’ heart and respiratory rates to drop dangerously low along with a dramatic slowdown of their metabolisms.
    Later that day, a juvenile green sea turtle rescued from South Texas waters during a December 2022 cold-stunning event was released into Gulf of Mexico waters at Laguna Madre by wildlife center employees. This individual turtle was one of 300 cold-stunned green sea turtles rescued by the Texas State Aquarium’s wildlife rescue team from December 24 to December 27, 2022 in Laguna Madre, located along the South Texas Gulf Coast. A cold front sent waters below freezing.
    Wildlife care specialist Giovanna Pena said the green sea turtle had fully recovered in four months and was ready to forage for algae, seagrasses and other vegetation in the wild. A barnacle attached to the turtle’s head earned it a nickname among staff.
    “It just attaches to them sometimes when they're laying on the ocean floor, it's not hurting them or anything. But during their time when they were in the rehabilitation process, sometimes they fall off and sometimes they stay on for this individual,” Pena said. “It stayed on his head for a very long time, so we've just nicknamed him Barnacle Head.”
    In recent years, Texas has experienced several major winter events, including a severe winter storm in February 2021 which triggered shutdowns of the power grid and directly or indirectly resulted in hundreds of human deaths. Some researchers have pointed to climate change as potential cause to increasingly erratic and extreme weather events like recent freezes.
    (Production: Evan Garcia)
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