[ad_1]
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, TX (AP) – Residents, some of whom lack heat or basic amenities in their own homes due to the unusually cold weather, rescued stunned sea turtles from the cold and took them to a convention center at a resort town in South Texas.
“Every 15 minutes or less, there’s another truck or SUV that pulls up,” Ed Caum, executive director of the South Padre Island Convention and Visitors Bureau, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
He said sometimes people bring one or two sea turtles, sometimes more. “We had full trailers yesterday that had 80, 100, 50,” he says.
The South Padre Island Convention Center started launching on Monday when its neighbor, Sea Turtle Inc., could no longer handle the number of sea turtles dropped off and their mostly outdoor operation lost power. He said the convention center itself had no electricity or water until Wednesday morning.
He says they have “picked up” over 3,500 sea turtles so far. He said he was hesitant to use the word saved because “we know we’re going to lose some”.
Caum said with another cold front approaching, they do not know when they will be able to return the sea turtles to the water.
Temperatures in the area on Wednesday afternoon were in the 40s. He said it may have been Saturday – when temperatures are expected to reach the low 60s (above 15 degrees Celsius) – before the turtles can be released into the gulf.
He said that with the return of electricity, they were able to raise the temperature of the convention center to 60 degrees.
“We are trying to do our best to save as many turtles as possible,” he said.
[ad_2]
Source link