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It felt important that we take a minute and pay to honor that service that that land gave to us and to the community and all the volunteers and employees that are here now and came before us.
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND — Sea Turtle Inc. plans to say a fond farewell and welcome a new chapter in its history with a land dedication ceremony at the site of its former hospital and now in-construction Rehabilitation and Research Center.
Before they begin to pour the foundation, the nonprofit, located at 6617 Padre Blvd., invites the public to come and pay homage Saturday at 2:30 p.m. to what that land has been able to do over its years of service—and what comes next.
The event will feature addresses by Chief Executive Officer Wendy Knight and Sea Turtle, Inc. Board of Directors Chairman Robin Farris, along with an invocation for the center. Attendees will also receive a sneak peek of the renderings for what they can expect to see by year’s end.
“It felt important that we take a minute and pay to honor that service that that land gave to us and to the community and all the volunteers and employees that are here now and came before us,” Knight said of the event.
The plan for the new facility features a 1,000-square-foot surgical suite, a sea turtle dedicated CT machine, a research center and a room for catastrophe and cold stun treatment, in addition to other needed additions built by NM Contracting, LLC.
Most incorporate observation points for visitors to aid the nonprofit’s mission to educate and engage the public in sea turtle rescue and conservation.
Enclosing the hospital and creating a cold stun treatment room with observation points for the public, Knight says, came about because of the mass cold stun event in 2021, which is considered the largest single cold stun in recorded history.
Over eight days, the organization and volunteers worked to rescue and treat more than 5,500 sea turtles in the makeshift treatment area in the South Padre Island Convention Center.
“When you are sitting in a convention hall at 3 a.m. with 5,000 sea turtles, you get lots of time to think about what we should be doing differently,” Knight said of the hospital addition.
Total estimated costs for the new center are just over $7 million. To fund the building, Sea Turtle, Inc. has been engaged in an ongoing Capital Campaign, which now has roughly $1 million left to meet its goal.
By the time we turn 50, which is just a few years away, we will have a research center that is researching significantly moving the needle on solving the biggest threats to sea turtles. We will own that here at Sea Turtle, Inc., and it will put South Padre Island and the work we are doing in the national limelight about conservation efforts and protecting sea turtles
At Sea Turtle Inc., staff and volunteers work to rescue, rehabilitate, and release injured sea turtles and assist with conservation efforts along the Texas Gulf Coast.
Their work started 45 years ago in founder Ila Fox Loetscher’s backyard, which housed the nonprofit’s sea turtles. Then around 25 years ago, the organization moved into a roughly 400-square-foot surf shack that slowly grew over the years into the hospital familiar to most visitors.
Now, after that hospital facility came down in October 2022, Sea Turtle, Inc. realized a decade-long dream to build what Knight says will be the largest fully-enclosed sea turtle hospital in the world.
With the new future center close at hand after years of work and serving sea turtles, the future seems bright to Knight.
“By the time we turn 50, which is just a few years away, we will have a research center that is researching significantly moving the needle on solving the biggest threats to sea turtles. We will own that here at Sea Turtle, Inc., and it will put South Padre Island and the work we are doing in the national limelight about conservation efforts and protecting sea turtles,” she said.
