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Saturday, January 24, 2009

Sea Turtle Rescue Station

We went over to S.P.I. for lunch today and stopped in to see the sea turtles at the rescue station. What an interesting place, it is ran on donation, souvenir sales and grants. This lady Lla Loetscher (1904-2000) founded Sea Turtle, Inc. in 1977, with the mission to rehabilitate injured sea turtles and educate the public about their marine environment. This is a young Hawksbill Sea turtle. Yes, they do come a shore to nest from Galveston down the coast of Mexico. Around June the females come a shore, volunteers collect the eggs and take them to a safe nursery then in about 45 days the little turtles hatch and they take them to shore where they crawl into the sea.
The turtles at the station have been hurt by sharks and most can be released. They have several large turtles that are 30 years old and will never be able to live in the sea, like Merry Christmas here a Green Sea turtle.

We picked up a few little souvenirs, but they would like people to purchase the items made by the people who used to hunt turtles and their eggs to encourage them to make a living in making these items. If you are interested in learning more visit www.seaturtleinc.com.

2 comments:

Q said...

Thank you for the link. I will go check them out.
We are heading to Texas and I was wondering about the sea turtles.
Safe travels.
Sherry

Cherylsue said...

We stayed at the turtle hospital in Marathon Key when we first went down to the Keys. Most of their turtles were hurt by motor boats. It is very interesting to see how they can mend these hurt turtles.