A young loggerhead turtle crawls through a pile of others waiting to be released Thursday, Sept. 5, 2013, into the Altantic Ocean near Boca Raton, Fla. Coast Guard officials helped Melanie Stadler, a marine scientist with Gumbo Limbo Nature Center, release almost 500 sea turtle hatchlings into the Atlantic Ocean.BOCA RATON, Fla. – More than 500 sea turtle hatchlings were gently released by hand Thursday onto sea beds off Florida’s Atlantic Coast, where the turtles have a better chance to survive.
The U.S. Coast Guard assisted with the release about six miles off the coast of Boca Raton because it is committed to protecting endangered and threatened species, officials said in a statement.
“I’m very passionate about the environment,” said Chief Cannon Schider-Heisel with the U.S. Coast Guard. “And my job affords me the chance to do that sometimes, where I get to help educate the public about the environment. It’s a facet of my job that I love.”
Schider-Heisel, who volunteers at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center, where the hatchlings were collected, joined marine scientist Melanie Stadler and other turtle rescue volunteers to release 311 loggerhead and 194 green sea turtles on Thursday.
One by one, the turtles were slowly placed in the water and onto beds of seaweed where “they have more hope to survive,” said Schider-Heisel, who described the sea beds as a La-Z-Boy for the baby turtles, or a safe and comfortable place for them to be released.