Thread by @lara__mac

My mom is retired, & she spends her winters volunteering at a sea turtle rescue center in south Texas. The cold snap is stunning the local turtles & they’re doing a lot of rescues. She sent me this photo today of the back of her Subaru. It’s *literally* turtles all the way down.

I'm glad you all appreciate my awesome mom! Some turtle updates: they rescued over 1,000 turtles yesterday, and expect 2 more days of cold-stun water temps. So lots more rescues to come.

They rescued one turtle yesterday who is over 100 years old and approximately 350 pounds!!!

They ran out of space at the rescue center, so the local convention center opened its doors to turtle storage. This video was from yesterday afternoon. By the time my mom sent it to me, there were so many more that she said, “there is no empty floor space tonight.”

This is all the great work of Sea Turtle, Inc. on South Padre Island. You can read more & support them here: seaturtleinc.org

Wow. Um. You all really like turtles! I’m waiting for my mom to get done volunteering for the day to share her new fan club with her, but all of your kind comments have me sobbing over here 😭 Thank you SO much for sharing & donating! Makes me so happy to spread some joy today.

Just got off the phone with my mom, & she is absolutely THRILLED by all of the support. She says thank you so much!! She also gave a lot of credit to the other volunteers who “actually go out into the cold water,” and to the SPI locals who have brought supplies & food throughout.

Here’s an article by @teoarmus that has great info & answers some of the common questions I’ve seen in this thread (and yes, there is a quote from Mom in there).

washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/02…

As requested, more photos from Mom. She says “imagine a football field with turtles side by side and nose to tail. That’s what it looks like here.”

I wish I could answer all of your questions, but I am not a turtle expert! Get updates and learn more from the actual experts at Sea Turtle, Inc. on their IG (but please don't bombard them with questions, they are obviously VERY busy): instagram.com/p/CLZqd9Gg0ai/