Sea Turtle Hospital Is Packed This Week
The Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center on Topsail Island will be feeding a lot of mouths, in fact a record number, this Thanksgiving.
An early season cold spell has left the hospital overflowing with injured sea turtles.
With the roster of old and new patients now at 48, the hospital has been forced to house its new arrivals in its intern house.
“Talk about sleeping with the fishes,” said hospital director Jean Beasley, laughing, of her interns. “They’re sleeping with the turtles now!”
Other facilities along the North Carolina coast – including all three state aquariums – also are now housing turtles caught by the recent dramatic dip in water temperatures that started earlier this month, with some inland waterways favored by juvenile loggerhead and green sea turtles dipping into the low 50s.
