Sea Turtle Inc. races to save eggs from storm aftermath

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas (ValleyCentral) — Sea Turtle Incorporated rescued multiple batches of sea turtle eggs from the aftermath of Tropical Storm Alberto on Thursday.

As the storm approached the shore, the tides rose all along South Padre Island and the Texas Gulf Coast. Dr. Amy Bonka, Sea Turtle Inc.’s Chief Conservation Officer said, “We were brainstorming with the city of South Padre. What could we do to help get this water out of the corral, help protect this nest, and help divert water from coming into the corral?”

Bonka joined workers and volunteers Thursday morning to protect the turtles and their nests. The eggs belonged to multiple endangered species, whose survival depended on their constant supervision.

"A couple of the things we did we, we are always watching the tides in the weather, we put sandbags out so Sea Turtle Inc. was working to get sandbags out to protect the corral."

Bonka says they had over 90 nests to protect.

“We have a team that's working 24 hours with Sea Turtle Inc. that are out in the corral were working all night and all day basically and about 3 a.m. they saw that those tide waters started to rise and they were starting to come into the corral," she said.

The Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle has as little as 10,000 left in the wild and emphasizes these small measures make a big difference for their future.

She plans to keep the corral up and deploy more sandbags, in case of any further storms.