United States

The Turtle Hospital Releases 50 Baby Sea Turtles

The Turtle Hospital in the Florida Keys released 50 healthy hatchlings into the Gulfstream Thursday.

Thus far, the Turtle Hospital has received over 160 hatchlings to care for since the beginning of nesting season in April.

Turtle Hospital staff released the hatchings into a sargassum weedline offshore. The sargassum helps to camouflage the hatchlings and is rich with a wide variety of small slow-moving animal prey for the baby sea turtles to eat.

Usually, baby turtles emerge from their nest and swim offshore fueled by the energy in their internal yolk sac. Hatchlings naturally follow the light from the stars and moon to the water, and because hatchlings rely on light to make it to the oceans, they can become disoriented by artificial light and crawl away from the ocean.

Sea Turtle nesting season will conclude in October.

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