Galaxy swipes the air with his flippers, head stretching toward the rolling waves and the sea beyond, volunteers sending him back home.
Whistles and cheers of those gathered for the rare event on South Padre Island accelerate into the crisp wind; they’ve come from places far away and close by to see the cold-stunned Atlantic green sea turtles — 160 of them — returned to their home by Sea Turtle, Inc.
“This is actually unique to have a cold-stunned event in December,” says Wendy Knight, CEO of STI, an organization dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation, and release of injured sea turtles.
Knight reveals that as the menacing Christmas freeze moved toward South Texas late last week, she and her staff and volunteers searched the shallow waters of the Laguna Madre for cold-stunned turtles. These turtles know instinctively what they’re supposed to be doing in cold temperatures, Knight explained, but their bodies can’t comply in such temperatures which in this case dipped into the twenties.
Other sea turtles are farther out to sea and they’re able to descend into the safety of warmer temperatures; however, this time of year the Atlantic greens are feeding on sea grass in the shallows of the Laguna Madre.
And so that’s where rescuers went to find them and quickly brought them into the warmth and the safety of STI, a sanctuary for rehabilitation and release.
Word quickly went out about the release, and Tuesday morning they begin arriving by the car loads. A girl in a pink quilted jacket chatted excitedly with her mother as her small steps moved briskly along gravel parking lot. Behind her a man walked easily in shorts and T-shirt. A large dog eagerly led its owner on a thick leash.
They were all moving toward the wooden walkway through the dunes and onto a sunlit stretch of beach where people gathered behind yellow tape awaiting truck loads of huge green turtles — and some very small ones too.
Tim Bowman and his wife Susan had taken a family vacation all the way from Ohio.
“We didn’t expect the weather to turn on us,” says Tim Bowman, with a slight grimace.
“We just heard about the turtle release yesterday and decided to check it out,” he says.
Wife Susan Bowman said they’d become interested in turtles eight years earlier during a trip to Boca Raton, Florida where they found a sea turtle rescue program.
“It just piqued our fascination,” she says.
As it has so many. More people exit the walkway and gather behind those already stationed in their spots to see this rare occurrence. They stood on dunes in shorts and T-shirts and winter jackets and hoodies. They squinted into the clear sun and the pure blue of the sky while the chill wind nipped away at any remaining hesitation, filling everyone with a fresh excitement. They pushed strollers and held children’s hands and embraced the day.
The event appeared to be a well calibrated organized affair with staff giving everyone clear instructions of where they should stand to see the turtles and where they must not be – beyond the yellow tape was clearly off-limits – in order to secure a safe and clear area for the trucks to bring in the turtles.
And they come finally, a caravan moving down the beach toward the yellow tape and the cheering crowd and the STI staff in their blue shirts.
The first truck pulls up and volunteers gather around the back for the enormous turtles lying quietly as if in silent resignation to some unknown fate. There is the frenzied “slap-slap-slapping” of flippers confused for a moment for a lack of purpose, their confusion dissolving into a liberation of purpose as they return to the sea.
That preceding paragraph is a nice piece of prosaic wandering and pondering except for one problem: the turtles aren’t confused at all.
Volunteer Jacob Reinbolt, 27, made several trips into the water to deliver the turtles and spoke with grand satisfaction about how the turtles behaved as they neared the water.
“They would just start waving their flippers, they were so excited to be out there,” he said.
And Knight confirmed this, explaining that the sound of the waves waves and feel of the salt of the air triggers a response. In other words, they know exactly what’s coming — they’re going home. I think that’s more exciting than my little prosaic leanings.
The turtles were excited, the people were excited. Gopal Prasad, 8, and his sister Deepa, 9, understood the significance of the turtle release.
“The populations are declining,” Deepa said matter-of-factly.
“I am grateful for the people who released them today,” she said.
“It was really cool!” added Gopal. “It was so nice for the people who did that. The population has gone down.”
Perhaps young nature enthusiasts like Gopal and Deepa and the staff at STI and the volunteers and the community members and the people driving from as far as Minnesota to support the turtles may ensure that animals like the Atlantic greens will not only survive these uncertain times but indeed thrive.
To see more, view Brownsville Herald photojournalist Denise Cathey’s full photo gallery here:
