August 9, 2017

These Baby Turtles Discovering Water Are What You Need Right Now

Break out the emergency sea turtle reserve.

Padre Island National Seashore/Instagram

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

On Tuesday evening, as the world searched for a silver lining in the phrase “fire and fury,” the Department of the Interior announced that the final baby Kemp’s ridley sea turtle release of the year had gone off without a hitch at Padre Island National Seashore in Texas. The news was a bit late—the video was filmed on July 29th—but no matter. Have you ever seen footage of sea turtles making their first steps toward water? Have you seen them pause curiously for seemingly forever only to scurry forward for a few seconds and then pause again? Have you seen them wiggle their little sand-encrusted turtle…claws? Paws? Oars? Flippers? (Flippers.)

Have you lived?

But it turns out the Interior tweet is fake news—the actual actual final release of baby Kemp’s ridley sea turtles this summer was on July 30th. That moment was captured by the Padre Island Instagram account (which I recommend if you’re into that kind of thing). The first video has a sort of ominous quality, but I happen to like the buddy-comedy aspect of this one:


Ack!

An earlier video, from a few days earlier, captures the full dramatic arc. A single baby turtle, determinedly making his way toward the surf, and then…wham! Don’t miss the dramatic ending:

 

I AM SO OUT OF HERE! 25th baby sea turtle release of summer 2017. #goturtlego #saltlife #padreisland #seaturtles #usinterior #nps #parks101

A post shared by Padre Island National Seashore (@padreislandnps) on


They’re so tiny! This one started going the wrong way in pursuit of the cameraman:


Watch this little buddy go up and over a huge piece of seaweed like it’s nothing:


I could watch these forever. Make sure to download them to your phone; you may not have WiFi in your survival bunker.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate