"Shell Shocked," the story of last year's epic cold-stunned turtle season, airs nationally on Sea Rescue this Saturday, January 16. See it locally at 10 a.m. on WCVB Channel 5. 

The New England Aquarium and Mass Audubon are featured in Saturday's (January 16) episode of Sea Rescue™. This special broadcast is Sea Rescue’s 100th original episode and relives the record-breaking turtle cold-stunning event in Massachusetts from November 2014 to January 2015. Hundreds of turtles were flown south for rehabilitation.

Rescued turtles start their journey to recovery. A clip from Sea Rescue's 100th episode called "Shell Shocked," airing Saturday at 10 a.m.

Every year a number of turtles strand on the coast of New England because of frigid water temperatures, but no one expected the 2014 – 2015 season would shatter all previous records. Residents of Cape Cod began seeing high numbers of cold stunned Kemp’s ridley turtles, and every day for six weeks teams from Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary combed the beaches in heavy, freezing winds.  The numbers soon became overwhelming; on one day alone Mass Audubon rescued a staggering 148 cold stun turtles and within weeks over 1,000 turtles and every square inch of floor space was taken up with new patients.

Hundreds of turtles were triaged and cared for at the Aquarium's Animal Care Center in Quincy.

The Mass Audubon “first responders” transported sick turtles to our Animal Care Center in Quincy, Mass., for acute care, involving slowly rewarming the turtles over several days and treating them with antibiotic and antifungal to boast immune systems and fend off infection. They were also treated for dehydration, malnutrition, metabolic problems, infections, and any injuries. Once the patients were stabilized, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) coordinated moving hundreds of turtles to 21 facilities around the country for long term rehab.

Working with the United States Coast Guard and Florida Fish and Wildlife (FWC), the turtles found temporary homes throughout the East and Gulf Coasts, and as far away as Texas. Long term rehab included keeping them in clean, warm water and continuing medications until the turtles slowly began to respond to treatment. All totaled over 730 turtles were recovered, rehabilitated, and began their second chance at life, seven times the average number treated.  

More than 700 turtles are swimming in the ocean today after last year's epic rescues.

We're blazing toward the New Year, so it's about time that we look back on the amazing year that was 2013. The Aquarium celebrated some unbelievable moments—some much touted and others quieter. But they're all part of what makes the Aquarium so special.

Scenes from this year's record cold-stun season: A rescuer examines the mouth of a Kemp's ridley sea turtle

These sea turtles are the last major transport of the record 242 sea turtles that washed up on Massachusetts beaches due to hypothermia last November and December. Cold-stunned sea turtles strand every late autumn on Cape Cod. There, they are collected by the dedicated and hardy staff and volunteers of the Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary at Wellfleet Bay who search miles of beaches in cold, blustery weather. The mostly inert turtles are then transported  to the New England Aquarium’s Animal Care Center in Quincy, MA, about ten miles south of Boston, where they are slowly re-warmed and treated for months with many other life threatening medical conditions. In an average year, about seventy juvenile, Kemp’s ridley, loggerhead and green sea turtles are taken in.

Scenes from cold-stun season: Rescue experts from National Aquarium in Baltimore speak with the Aquarium's chief veterinarian Dr. Charles Innis during the busy sea turtle stranding season.

This past year, between Thanksgiving and Christmas , the flow of these critically ill sea turtles just never seemed to stop. The Aquarium’s state-of-the art sea turtle hospital has a capacity of about seventy animals. Connie Merigo, head of the Aquarium’s rescue team, quickly reached out to other aquariums and marine animal rehab facilities all along the East Coast to take in sea turtles that had already been re-warmed and stabilized. Since then, many of these turtles have already been treated and released.

Scenes from cold-stun season: A loggerhead turtle rests on towels

Scenes from cold-stun season: A green sea turtle during treatments

The Sea Turtle Trek will collect the most of the remaining sea turtles that are ready for release in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states. Early Saturday morning, biologists at the University of New England (UNE) in Biddeford, Maine will lift five, chestnut brown-colored, loggerhead sea turtles from their tanks and package them into dry, padded crates for transport two hours south to the New England Aquarium’s Quincy site. At the same time on Cape Cod, staff at the National Marine Life Center (NMLC) in Buzzards Bay will prepare four charcoal-colored Kemp’s ridleys for an hour and a half ride north to Quincy. There, those nine animals will join twenty-eight more from the Aquarium’s sea turtle hospital to begin the Sea Turtle Trek’s long drive south.

Scenes from cold-stun season: A volunteer keeps an eye on a loggerhead sea turtle awaiting treatment

In Connecticut, the turtle caravan will stop briefly to off I-95 to pick up four loggerheads that will be ferried across Long Island Sound from the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation. With forty-one marine reptiles in tow, the Sea Turtle Trek will drive to the National Aquarium in Baltimore by early Saturday evening to pick up one green, one Kemp’s and one loggerhead. Then with forty-four animals, the trek will stop at the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center in Virginia Beach in the late evening.

Scenes from cold-stun season: An expert from the Riverhead Foundation in New York who was on hand to help during the record sea turtle stranding season.

Traveling overnight with multiple drivers, the Sea Turtle Trek hopes to arrive in the Jacksonville, Florida area by late Sunday morning. There, officials from Florida Fish & Wildlife will select a release beach in the region, and forty-six endangered and threatened sea turtles will crawl down a beach to re-enter the ocean. All of the people and organizations who have helped these sea turtles along their unusual paths hope that they live long lives and contribute to the recovery of their threatened and endangered populations.

Follow the Rescue Blog for pictures and updates or follow us Facebook and be sure to track #seaturtletrek on Twitter, Tumblr, Google+ and Instagram. This media release is cross-posted to the Rescue Blog.