17 sea turtles were found off the coast of northern Florida after a deep freeze hit the north part of the state and these turtles needed help. They got rescued, they got added to the Logged Head Marine Life Center and they are on the mend. We're going to talk about what cold stunning is, how it happens and how these sea turtles recover from it on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show.
Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action.
And on today's episode, we're going to be talking about sea turtles and cold stunning and what that is, how it affects the sea turtles and how they are rescued and what they need to do to go put them back into the ocean. We're going to talk all about that. But before we do, if this is your first time here, you can get all the information you need to learn how to protect the ocean by going to our website, speakupforblue.com.
And if you want that information going to your inbox, you can get it at speakupforblue.com forward slash newsletter, sign up for the email. It'll come to you Monday and Friday, 8 a.m. Eastern and you get to enjoy that information. Let's get back to the show. We're talking sea turtles. This happens every once in a while. Sea turtles get cold stunned. What is a cold stun?
Well, essentially sea turtles are susceptible to a condition known as cold stunning, which occurs when they're exposed to cold water temperatures leading to hypothermia and immobility. This phenomenon has been documented in various regions, particularly during sudden cold spells, which the northern part of Florida received this with the past week. It was kind of crazy.
A lot of people in northern Florida and Georgia and southern part of Georgia had received about two inches of snow, which doesn't happen in Georgia or Florida. Really interesting phenomenon that happened. Although there are people who really enjoyed the snow and enjoyed doing what they needed to do to have some fun. Some animals did not enjoy it so much.
And these 17 sea turtles that were rescued off the coast of St. Augustine, Florida were brought to the loggerhead marine life center in order to rehabilitate before going back to the ocean. These sea turtles were found either on the coastline where they were just kind of frozen. They're not frozen in terms of like icicles, but they were just frozen in terms of they couldn't move. They were mobile. They weren't feeling well. They just got frozen.
These are still animals that have to be heated by the water surrounding to be helped. And so this cold water that was hit the ocean really quickly, because if it's cold on land, it's cold in the water and they just got stunned by it. Literally stunned along the coastline. Some sea turtles were floating along the coast in the water. They were rescued as well, brought to the loggerhead marine life center and they were helped.
So initially what happens when they get cold, stunned, they go into like a hypothermic state, right? So they become lethargic. They are unable to swim properly and they can risk death. They can risk like sinking down and not being able to breathe, which is not helpful, right? Veterinarians and animal rescue teams follow a specific and specialized treatment process to rehabilitate them. So the first is the initial assessment and stabilization. So they look at the physical examination.
So vets check for injuries, infections, dehydration and other health concerns. They look for vital signs. So they'll say like they'll assess the turtle's body temperature, their heart rate, their respiration. They'll look to do a warming process. So they'll start to warm these animals up one to two degrees Fahrenheit or 0.5 to one degrees Celsius per day. So they don't prevent a shock because you can't go from heat to cold. We know that shocks them and the cold right back to heat again.
You got to do that over a number of day process and that can take a long time. So it's done in a controlled indoor pools and dry holding areas. So the medical treatment, sometimes they require fluids and electrolytes because dehydrated turtles will receive these through intravenous or subcutaneous injections to restore hydration.
And then there's antibiotics and medications that are given if they have infections, pneumonia or any other types of injuries, they receive antibiotics or other medications that will treat those. Some of them will go through oxygen therapy. So some of the turtles with respiratory distress will be given oxygen support if necessary. And then the rehabilitation takes some times. There's gradual water reintroduction.
So once stable, the turtles will be placed in shallow, warm water to regain some of that muscle strength. Then they'll be monitored as they ensure that they can swim properly and dive properly because that's an important part of their life history and their life cycle. And then the behavior assessments, the look at the turtles, they must show that they have normal behaviors like diving, eating and responding to stimuli before they are released.
And once they're released back into the wild, they'll make sure they have a health care clearance. So they have the only healthy, strong turtles are released showing all this stuff that we just talked about previously. So they can go back and warm and safe waters. They're going to get tagged and they're going to get tracked. So some turtles will receive satellite and flipper tags to help scientists monitor their movements and survival post release.
I did an episode on this a while ago, a link to it in the show notes. But I talked to Dr. Nathan Robinson, who did a study just off the coast of Rhode Island with cold sun turtles. And they noticed that with the tracking, they could actually tell where these turtles go. And if they look like they're still in distress, they can go out, find these turtles, bring them back. Although it doesn't happen often, it can happen.
And it's always good to get the turtle back in, reassess it, put it back through the rehabilitation process and determine whether and if it can be released at a later date. And I think that's really important. They'll be careful selection of the release location. So obviously turtles are released in warmer waters to prevent another cold stunning event. I know in Florida, there's not a lot of coal.
I know Florida doesn't really get a lot of cold spells, but with this winter, you don't really know what's going to happen. This could be a big problem for them. And so if another cold stunning happens or you need to get another cold spell, a polar vortex comes down again. We don't want these turtles to go through a deep freeze. So knowing where they are is really important, but also releasing them maybe a little bit more south where they can take a different travel plan.
That would be really important. That's how the rehabilitation happens. It's a long process. It could take up to a couple of weeks, maybe in three, four weeks, maybe a month. There may be some turtles that may not be ready for quite some time to be released, if at all. That's the assessment of the veterinarians. That's the assessment of the healthcare providers. And I know the Logged Marine Life Center has done an excellent job in the past of helping these turtles out.
And they're all about making sure that sea turtles are not only healthy and safe, but they're released in the proper areas. I'm going to put a bunch of organizations in the past that have helped with this type of stuff. Obviously, the Logged Marine Life Center is at the top of that. The New England Aquarium in Massachusetts helps. The Texas State Aquarium will also be involved.
Sea Turtle Inc. in Texas is also involved in North Carolina Aquariums for Sea Turtle Assistant and Rehabilitation Center. Also known as STAR is also involved in these processes in different parts along the East Coast because we see this every once in a while along the East Coast, depending on where these cold snaps hit. Obviously, if you think of Massachusetts, if these sea turtles don't clear certain areas, they may have a problem with cold stunning. And we obviously don't want that to happen.
Sea turtles are endangered species. They need to be protected. All seven species are endangered. Definitely need that protection. Marine protected areas can help. Tracking these sea turtles can help and also monitoring these cold snaps where they are. Sometimes you may not know they're in the ocean because it doesn't hit on land and being able to find where these sea turtles are or where the cold snaps are and monitor those situations to find more would be very helpful.
That's it for today's episode. I want to give you this episode because I think it's really important to see hardworking people, volunteers, the Logged Marine Life Center in this situation, really helping out these sea turtles. I want to give a shout out to them and thank them for doing that as well as all the other people who involved in helping cold sun turtles in Texas, in Massachusetts and North Carolina and all over the coastline. It's really helpful that people are there.
It saves these species and we need every single individual of these species to be saved as much as possible because they go through enough. That's it for today's episode. If you have any questions or comment, put them in the comments below. If you're on YouTube or you're watching this on Spotify or if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast app, you can hit me up on Instagram. That's it for today's episode.