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The Two Oceans Aquarium has been inundated with over 500 baby sea turtles that were washed up on beaches by a rare and powerful storm that hit our country recently.

The little turtles are mostly endangered loggerheads and should be cruising the ocean, but instead found themselves washed up in the hoards on the wrong beach and rescued by members of the public.

Rather than figuring out the way of the sea, they’re spending the first few months of their lives in newly built plastic tanks at the Turtle Conservation Center at the Cape Town aquarium.

The Associated Press notes that the aquarium is at capacity, 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.

Talitha Noble-Trull, the head of the Turtle Conservation Center, who is in charge of treating the new arrivals, says that it is common to have loggerhead hatchlings wash up this side of town.

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.

However, the severity of the storm, as well as the sheer number in which the little turtles washed up, is far beyond normal.

The conservation centre is accustomed to tending to around 100 stranded young turtles in the three to four months after hatching season and has a normal capacity of 150 turtles.

“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,” Noble-Trull said. “My budgeting plans for the year have really gone out the window.”

She estimated that each turtle will cost around R10,000 to get back to full strength before being released into the warmer Indian Ocean in a few months.

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 them.

The storm was a major shock to the turtles, who are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather and climate change. In this way, conservationists often refer to turtles’ health as a way to understand the state of the ocean.

Because turtles spend almost all their lives in the ocean, apart from when they’re born and when females return to shore to lay eggs, Noble-Trull said they’re thought of as “ocean indicators”.

This dole of fledgling turtles has not brought good news at all. The conservation team noticed evidence of an unprecedented amount of plastic pollution in the ocean.

Many of the turtles had ingested small pieces of plastic, which exited their systems after they arrived at the aquarium. Noble-Trull has a tray of plastic pieces collected in just one day, some as big as a fingernail.

“Little bits of soft plastic, little bits of hard plastic are floating all along the oceans and turtles are eating them. So, for us it’s very important to be collecting and capturing this data. Because these turtles are coming at us with a message.”

“They’re not telling us. They’re shouting it at us. That our oceans are not a safe place for turtles.”

The Two Oceans Aquarium and the turtle team are appealing to you to help save a little ‘ocean indicator’. They are hoping to raise R2.4 million to get the 581 hatchlings back on their flippers.

At the Turtle Conservation Centre, we are devoted to upping the odds for these tiny turtles and making a dent in survival rates – we are committed to a future where all species of sea turtles swim wild and free in the ocean where they belong.

If you can, please help the Aquarium help these resilient, precious animals.

[source:nbcnews]