The Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center has released 41 turtles on Topsail Island. More than 4 hundred school children came from surrounding counties to watch yesterday's event. The turtles were escorted down the beach and gently returned to their ocean home. Many of the turtles that were released had been found stunned in last winter's cold water. Jean Beasley, the center's director, said sea turtles are crucial to human survival.
Jean Beasley: "If the creatures of the ocean cannot survive and their populations are being decimated by the harmful things that we allow to happen. then, without that support, it will be us that disappears as well."
The center has been operating since 1996 and has released more than 300 turtles.