An aquarium in South Africa is stretched beyond capacity after more than 500 baby sea turtles were washed up on beaches by a rare and powerful storm and rescued by members of the public.
The little turtles are mostly endangered loggerheads and should be cruising the ocean.
Most of them instead will spend the first few months of their lives in newly built plastic tanks at the Turtle Conservation Centre at the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town.
The aquarium is rehabilitating around 400 of the roughly 530 sick and injured turtles that were brought in, while sending the rest to two other aquariums to spread the load.
Baby turtles have to fend for themselves from the moment they hatch on beaches and make their way to the ocean.
Rough ocean ride
In South Africa, loggerheads hatch on the northeast coast, on the far side of the country from Cape Town. These turtles were likely sucked in by the warm Indian Ocean Agulhas Current, carried around the tip of South Africa, and spat out in the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Town.
“What we haven’t seen before is over 500 turtles in two weeks, which is what the last little bit of time has brought us,” said Talitha Noble-Trull, the head of the Turtle Conservation Centre in charge of treating the new arrivals. “My budgeting plans for the year have really gone out the window.”
The turtles are ranked according to how sick they are, with some needing intensive care due to injuries, malnutrition, or infection. A number is written on each shell to identify it.
While the storm was a major shock to the turtles, who are vulnerable to extreme weather and climate change, it has given Noble-Trull and other conservationists valuable insight into another increasingly common danger.
Many of the turtles had ingested small pieces of plastic, which exited their systems after they arrived at the aquarium.
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