Drones are transforming searches along the Laguna Madre for cold-stunned green sea turtles.
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Dozens of cold stunned sea turtles are recovering at the Texas State Aquarium after being spotted along the Laguna Madre during our recent cold snap.
Aquarium officials say drones are playing a crucial role in locating turtles stranded by dangerously cold water temperatures, allowing rescue teams to reach animals that would otherwise go unseen.
“Trying to do that by boat or by foot is impossible,” said Jesse Gilbert, CEO of the Texas State Aquarium. “So the drones, along with the air assets from the U.S. Coast Guard, that’s a game changer.”
The drone flights are operated with support from the Autonomy Research Institute at Texas A and M University Corpus Christi. Live video from the aircraft is streamed directly back to the Aquarium’s wildlife rescue emergency operations center, where officials can monitor conditions in real time as crews search miles of coastline.
Here inside the rescue center, staff watched those flights live as drones scanned the Laguna Madre for signs of stranded turtles.
“We’re able to send it back through a video server that we set up and built on our own using the same technology that people use every day,” said Tye Payne, associate director with the Autonomy Research Institute at TAMUCC. “YouTube, Twitch, Discord, it’s the same technology. We’ve just modified it and secured it for what we’re trying to do so we can push it out pretty much anywhere in the country.”
That real time access allows multiple agencies to coordinate rescue efforts quickly across the Texas coast.
Right now, about 70 sea turtles are being treated at the Texas State Aquarium’s rescue center. During our visit, a Texas game warden arrived with another pickup truck full of green sea turtles, delivering them directly into the hands of rehabilitation workers who immediately began warming and stabilizing the animals.
“We are really glad to be part of this statewide effort to rescue animals in the bay,” said Michael Sanders, assistant vice president and executive director of the Autonomy Research Institute at TAMUCC.
The rescue operation is part of a larger coordinated response involving state and federal agencies working to save wildlife impacted by the cold weather.
Looking ahead, Aquarium leaders say new technology could further expand rescue capabilities in the future.
“So right now we are working on a piece of technology that can use artificial intelligence to identify distressed wildlife from the drone,” Gilbert said. “In real time, you can fly the drone down the Texas coast and it can tell us where those animals are and how many there are, without humans even involved.”
For now, the work remains hands on at Padre Island National Seashore. Employees and volunteers have set up kiddie pools and warming stations, carefully nursing the turtles back to health before they can be returned to the water.
Aquarium officials say every successful rescue gives these cold stunned turtles a second chance at survival.