The founder of Sea Turtle, Inc was Ila Fox Loetscher. In 1965, at the age of 61 she fell in love with the Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle, decided to take up the protection of sea turtles as her life’s work, and began rehabilitating injured sea turtles at her home on South Padre Island.
In 1977, Ila formed Sea Turtle, Inc. into its present non-profit, all-volunteer organization. She died in January of 2000 at the age of 95.
I found this wonderful picture of Ila Fox Loetscher on the Internet. Notice the snazzy, turtle sweater!
On the day we visited, since the outside air temperature was below 55 degrees, the outside tanks were covered to conserve heat so we weren’t able to see a lot of the turtles.
There were a few turtles inside in kiddie pools where we were able to get up close to see these beautiful creatures.
This, really bad picture, is Allison. She is an Atlantic green sea turtle. She should live to be over 100 years old! Allison is missing 3 flippers due to a predator attack in 2005. She is world famous because she wears the first successful sea turtle prosthetic in the world.
We came across these beautiful hand-crocheted bags for sale in the gift shop.
We stopped there several times when we were in S. Texas. You have to admire all of the people that put so much into nursing these beautiful creatures back to health.
ReplyDeleteThe picture of Ila with the turtle in the sweater is really cool. I love the expression on her face.
ReplyDeleteDid you buy one of the bags? They are very colorful!