SOUTH PADRE ISLAND — Although this facility is closed to the public, employees of this sea turtle hospital aim to continue providing learning opportunities for nature enthusiasts.
Sea Turtle, Inc. personnel will live stream educational sessions on their Facebook page that will teach viewers about the facility’s hospital and discuss threats sea turtles face in their natural environment.
“In light of everything that is going on right now with COVID-19, we want to give families and people that are stuck at home, an opportunity to get out of their heads for a little bit,” education director Khrystyne Jamerson said. “We know that everybody is really stressed out with everything that’s going on and kids and parents alike are really cooped up at home.”
Jamerson conducted the facility’s first video on Wednesday.
The video focused on teaching the public about the anatomy of land and sea turtles.
As of Thursday afternoon, the video has received nearly 4,000 views from people watching in several different locations such as Texas, Wisconsin, North Carolina and even Canada.
“I was surprised how many people were watching the entire time so that was pretty cool,” Jamerson said. “We do virtual programs at Sea Turtle, Inc. already so I feel like it was a pretty simple transition for us to just do programs similar and in condensed versions on Facebook instead of our usual platform that we use.”
During the video, Jamerson asked a variety of interactive questions, showed viewers different land turtles and presented a mini-tour of the residents’ turtle tank area.
According to Jamerson, Sea Turtle, Inc. personnel hope to make Facebook live videos every other day.
Jamerson said personnel will post some type of activity or craft idea on the days they won’t be creating videos.
“We want everybody to keep their heads up,” Jamerson said. “We know it’s a stressful time right now and just doing things to kind of reduce that stress makes everybody feel a little bit better so we’re just hoping that these videos will help do that.”
IF YOU WATCH
WHAT — Sea Turtle, Inc. Facebook live educational video
WEBSITE — https://seaturtleinc.org/
FACEBOOK PAGE — https://tinyurl.com/uydcw33
To watch Sea Turtle, Inc.’s first education video, visit https://youtu.be/Us9UKDWuNXg
