Animal Rescue Group Wants Your Old Bras To Help Save Injured Turtles

INDIAN TRAIL, N.C. (CBS Local) -- An animal rescue group in North Carolina area wants your old bras. It may sound funny, but this is no joke.

Carolina Waterfowl Rescue caused a bit of a bruhaha on social media last week when it requested discarded bras to help save the lives of turtles.

It's not the bra itself they want, however. They use the clasps to weld turtles' cracked shells back together.

"It acts like a little fixator, it's the eyelets that we need," Keenan Freitas at the Carolina Waterfowl Rescue told CBS affiliate WBTV.

The animal rescue group based just outside Charlotte said it is caring for several turtles with broken shells per week. They say summer is the busiest time of year.

"It's when it rains, that's when they're moving to lay eggs, so when it rains we get a ton of turtles," said Freitas.

Most of the turtles that have been injured in auto, boating or other accidents. About half are fixable.

The team repairs the reptiles using some glue, a little tape and yes, bra clasps.

"It's just these little ingenious things that people have created in the past that we can use today to help animals out," he said.

When it's time to release the reptiles back into the wild, they wear the glue down a little, the clasps pop right off, and they're good as new.

You can send your discarded bras to Carolina Waterfowl Rescue at P.O. Box 1484, Indian Trail, NC 28079.