CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Despite Friday's cold temperatures, the Texas State Aquarium was open to visitors.
Some animals at the aquarium were brought inside Thursday night to get out of the hard freeze. The facility has 24 hour zoology staff on site to keep an eye on animals throughout the night as temperatures dropped.
They'll be on site again Friday night as the Coastal Bend sees continued freezing temperatures.
TSA's Jesse Gilbert said they will be keeping an eye out for the next 72 hours for any cold-stunned turtles residents may come across.
"When the Coastal Bend experiences a freeze like this, or a hard freeze, the sea turtle population because they are cold blooded -- they just can't handle it," he said. "And they become almost hypothermic, they don't have consciousness, they can float, they can wash up along the beach."
The goal is to find the cold-stunned sea turtles before they spend too much time washed ashore, because animals like coyotes could get to them. The sea turtles that already call the aquarium home were brought inside Thursday night.