SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas - While hundreds of people go fishing for a variety of species along the jetties from Port Mansfield to Boca Chica Beach, others go looking for something else.
Such as stranded sea turtles.
And it works.
Scores of volunteers go walking on the uneven rocks searching for the flopping inhabitants of the Laguna Madre as they get swept by the rising tides and end up unable to get out in between the cracks of the jetties.
The volunteers are with Sea Turtle, Inc., an organization founded in 1977 by the late IIa Loetscher. She was known as the “Turtle Lady,” and died 24 year ago this past January.
Almost 50 years later, her legacy lives on and part of that can be attributed to the volunteers, many of whom spend endless hours rescuing the stranded turtles.
Although recent freezes have taking its toll on these turtles, many have gone back to the salty waters of the bay. And that is thanks to volunteers such as Holly Hamilton and daughter Elizabeth.
On Friday, March 20, the mom and daughter team were walking along the Island jetty, conspicuously looking into the rocks in hopes of finding something.
And guess what?
Holly Hamilton found and rescued a green turtle minutes after she and her daughter took a break to talk about their missions.
“We do this regularly,” she said. “We walked for several hours looking for these turtles.”
She then said if people spot one they should contact Sea Turtle, Inc., because they are federally protected and are to be handled by people who hold state and federal permits to work with turtles.
Hamilton said they started volunteering more than two years ago and have found about a dozen turtles since then.
The two Hamiltons are part of a team of some of 300 regular volunteers at the turtle organization located on the north end of the Island.
“They are an intrinsic part of the organization,” Wendy Knight, the chief executive officer of Sea Turtle, Inc., said. “We had no employees during the first 25 years of Sea Turtle Inc.”
Today, she continued, 20 to 25 people are employed.
But the need for more volunteers is always there, Knight said, as they cover an area that stretches more than 50 miles from Port Mansfield to Boca Chica Beach.
“These are a bunch of people wanting to do something good,” she said. “We can work around their schedule. It could be one hour a day or eight hours.”
A week before the Hamiltons were spotted walking along the jetty, a group of about ten volunteers were seen doing the same.
“If you find a turtle, please let us now,” a woman said, before handing over a business card. “We will send somebody who can handle it.”
The card contains information about Sea Turtle, Inc., including a 24/7 hotline to report any stranded or injured turtle. The number is 956-243-4361.
