Sea Turtles Swimming into Deep Trouble
Thirty five miles into the Gulf, the chase is on. Wildlife agents and turtles are swimming into deep trouble, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann.
A green sea turtle pulled out of the Gulf looked clean. But Mandy Tumlin, a Louisiana state turtle expert, says the danger could be internal.
"Ingestion or inhalation that we just don't know about," Tumlin said, because it is difficult to know where the turtle has been or what it has eaten.
Special Section: Disaster in the Gulf
Wildlife agents rescue every turtle they find. Most hide in sargassum, a floating sea grass. Sargassum is a buffet table for turtles, but oil is clinging to the sargassum and that's trouble.
Five species of turtles - four of them endangered - now swim through the oily Gulf.
Wildlife workers have rescued more than 500 turtles. Just one in five comes out alive because there is too much oil.
"It just kind of drips off them once you pick them out of the water," Tumlin said.
Researchers have attached a GPS on the back of a Kemp's Ridley turtle named Karen so they can track its migration from Texas. The turtle is named for Farrar Stockton's late wife Karen Stockton, a Houston teacher.
The dot is a Kemp's Ridley turtle named Karen - THIS turtle, with a GPS on its back so researchers can track its migration from Texas. Tracking shows Karen the turtle heading straight for Louisiana's spill zone.
"Hopefully she'll have some signal that will tell her that survival means turn around and go west," Stockton said.
But most of these turtles are going east, and Mandy Tumkin's team will only intercept so many. The Kemp's Ridley is the most endangered turtle of all, after a half century of nursing.
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