Florida's sea turtles experienced a relatively large cold-stunning event in northern Florida last week. In the St. Joseph Bay area, FWC documented over 1,200 cold-stunned turtles from January 21st to 26th! All were green turtles except for 8 loggerheads and 1 Kemp’s ridley. Most were found alive and were transported to Gulf World Marine Institute (GWMI) for recuperation. Since recuperation is typically quick, some have been released already! The remaining turtles will spend a bit more time warming up and most will be released by January 31st, 2025.

The effort to locate and recover cold-stunned sea turtles around St. Joseph Bay is impressive: It’s a large team of partners that include the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), staff from multiple divisions within the FWC, and local sea turtle conservation groups authorized by the FWC to respond to sick and injured sea turtles. These groups included Gulf and East Bay Sea Turtle Patrol and Indian Pass Sea Turtle Patrol, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, St Joseph Peninsula State Park personnel, Tyndall Air Force Base and Eglin Air Force Base Natural Resources staff, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Gulf World Marine Institute, Florida Coastal Conservancy and NOAA Fisheries Service. This event is similar in magnitude to a cold-stunning event in the same area during 2018.

During cold weather like North Florida has experienced, cold-stunned sea turtles are not unusual. If you spot an injured, sick, distressed or dead sea turtle, please report it to our Wildlife Alert Hotline at 888-404-FWCC (3922).

You can learn more about cold-stunned sea turtles and how to help at bit.ly/FWC-cold-stunning and bit.ly/NOAA-cold-stunning-sea-turtles