Oil spills can effect every species of turtle and every stage of a turtles growth very badly. There have been 100 turtles founds stranded in gulf from 1982 to 2009 and 500 turtles found each year since the spill happened, the main turtles involved were Kemp’s Redleys. When the spill happened people working on they spill found 450 turtles with clear signs of oil on them out of the 1,066 that were found around that spill. In the end, the total number of dead sea turtles was at about 600 and 500 of those were Kemp’s Redleys.
The adult sea turtles may sometimes mistake the tar balls for food and also the turtles need to breath so when they go to the surface for air they could breath in the oil or get it stuck on there face. These turtles can have sever pain in mucous membranes of the eyes and mouth and can have irritation or inflammation of the skin when in contact with oil. Also the tactics being used to clean up the oil are not safe for the turtles, its somewhat like a toxic sludge that there using to clean up the oil and we are still seeing the effects it has on the turtles this day. In order to help the turtles environment employees launched a mission to relocate the eggs to ensure the babies did not end up drowning in the oil. They would did up the eggs while they were in late stage incubation and then bring them back to a facility for them to hatch. After they hatch the employees would take them to the Atlantic and set them free, this was done successfully to 14,000 baby turtles.
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Life Of A Sea Turtle 