The discovery of a large loggerhead sea turtle stranded on a Texas beach over the weekend has brought awareness to the recent uptick in such sightings.
The authorities at Quintana Beach County Park found the loggerhead sea turtle stranded on its shores on the morning of July 29. While glimpsing the loggerhead used to be considered an anomaly, they are now steadily becoming a regular sight.
“It is not common to see loggerheads on our local beaches,” Patty Brinkmeyer, supervisor of Quintana Beach County Park, said, according to KSAT. “Last year we had several strandings of them though. I believe they attributed it to their food source.”
The loggerhead sea turtle is considered a threatened species, both by state and federal authorities.
While they tend to be quite vulnerable to predators when they are hatchlings, as adults they can grow to between 170 and 500 pounds.
They can live up to 50 years, feeding on fish, crabs, squid, clams, sponges, and more with their powerful jaws.
The loggerhead that washed up on Quintana Beach was taken to a local care facility for treatment by a Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research volunteer, Brinkmeyer told KSAT.
Timing is crucial in such circumstances, with “a lot of coordination among trained, authorized individuals” required to make a rescue a success, as explained by Mary Kay Skoruppa, Texas sea turtle coordinator for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, according to KSAT.
In 2022, Texas beaches saw a record number of strandings of the loggerhead sea turtle. A total of 282 were logged, most occurring between April and August.
“This is more than twice the average annual number of loggerhead strandings recorded from 2012 to 2021, which was 109, and annual numbers have increased during this decade,” explained Donna J. Shaver, the Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network’s Texas coordinator, according to KSAT.
A Facebook post from Quintana Beach County Park urged the public to report sightings of injured, stranded, or nesting sea turtles by calling 1-866-TURTLE-5.
Alongside turtles, some odd creatures have washed up on Texas shores lately.
As reported in The Dallas Express in May, a wormlike, bristled creature was discovered on East Beach in Galveston, causing quite a stir on social media. Eventually, Texas Parks and Wildlife identified it as a bristle worm, a venomous aquatic worm.
A month earlier, another beachgoer discovered an odd-looking fish with an elongated body and an extended jaw, as covered in The Dallas Express. TPW officials later revealed it to be a snapper eel.
