Kemp's Ridley sea turtle hatchlings

I interned for Sea Turtle, Inc., a sea turtle rehab and conservation organization. I and other interns and volunteers would patrol for nesting sea turtles and tracks they leave behind, locate the nests if we could, move the eggs to a protective corral on the beach, and then release the babies when they hatch. These pictures are from one of our public releases, at sunrise. Dozens of people stood around as we made sure that every last baby made it safely into the water. What happens after is out of our hands, but statistically they say that by protecting the eggs and the newborn hatchlings on their walk to the ocean, about 1 in 300 live to adulthood vs. about 1 in 1,000 if they're left to face threats on their own from the beginning. Thanks to efforts like these on the Padre Islands and in northern Mexico, the Kemp's Ridley species, which used to be the most endangered of all sea turtle species, has seen an impressive recovery. /end speech [as you may be able to tell, I used to give talks to the public at the facility]