There was a cold Sea Turtle..or two, or three, or three hundred

The temperatures have been unusually cold here in Florida. We are not used to so many consecutive days of freezing weather and neither are the sea turtles.
So far the state of Florida has seen at least 1,500 "Cold Stunned" sea turtles, mostly green, that just couldn't handle the cold temperatures anymore.
I received a call from Dr Nancy Mettee. She and I went to Slidell, La. after hurricane Katrina hit and we also went to St Croix to save a leatherback turtle together. She asked for my help so I found myself driving down to Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton. There were a lot of cold turtles and there were a lot of wonderful volunteers waiting to help them. We started right away with getting body weights, blood (to make sure they didn't need special or different meds) and fluids into them for support. Some of them were malnourished and depressed. Others were feisty and feeling better and ready to hit the beach. On Sunday they (Gumbo Limbo) had a total of fify Green Turtles recovering.
Once we were done with that group we headed up to Loggerhead Marine Life Center in Juno Beach, 45 minutes north. They had a total of 31 Green Turtles there. The volunteers here were equally wonderful. One volunteer's mom brought us food and hot chocolate...YUM!

It was a long day but not one person complained and every turtle had been taken care of before we left.
Today is another day and more turtles have been brought in for care. I will go back tomorrow for another day of wrestling 125lb turtles, scraping their barnacles off, giving injections and keeping them warm. I can't think of anything else I want to do more!

Thanks for reading and Keep Wagging!

Monique