Texas A&M-Galveston Is Building a Sea Turtle Hospital — And You’ll Get to Visit

Big news from Galveston: Texas A&M is building a brand-new sea turtle rehab hospital, and if all goes to plan, it’ll be ready by 2027. Not only will it treat sick and injured turtles, but you’ll also get to meet some of their long-term “turtle ambassadors” in person.

The university is putting $17 million behind the project, plus another $1.7 million to get things rolling before construction begins.

This will be the new home for the Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research — the go-to team for sea turtle rescue and rehab along the upper and middle Texas coast.

Chris Marshall, who leads the center, says the new hospital will be a game changer. People love sea turtles, and they’re hoping this place becomes a spark that gets more folks to care about the ocean.

The Gulf Center has been around since 2019. They’ve been protecting nesting Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, treating cold-stunned or sick ones, and keeping things going ever since NOAA shut down its own facility in the area.

They even opened a temporary hospital — which is now way too small for the work they’re doing.

Since opening, they’ve helped over 500 turtles and treated nearly 300 of them in that little space. So yeah, they’ve earned a proper upgrade.

The new building will be about four times bigger and will sit near the upcoming Pelican Island Bridge. It’ll treat up to 30 turtles at a time, split into two wards. One side will be for turtles with a contagious virus (fibropapillomatosis), and the other for all other patients.

Visitors can walk through a hallway that looks into both sides — kind of like a behind-the-scenes tour of sea turtle recovery.

The place will also have big tanks for turtles that can’t be released back into the wild. You’ll see them up close and learn what threatens turtles and how scientists are working to help.

There’s even going to be a museum-style lounge that explains why sea turtles matter and how they connect to bigger ocean health.

Marshall’s hoping people will visit, learn something, and maybe even help keep the hospital going by paying a small fee. They’re already tagging and tracking turtles in Galveston Bay and even helping with coastal projects to make sure sea turtles don’t get left out of the planning.

Five of the seven sea turtle species live in the Gulf — including the critically endangered Kemp’s ridley. Their numbers are dropping fast, and that’s bad news for the ocean. These turtles keep seagrass healthy, which helps support fish we eat. So yeah, no turtles = fewer fish tacos.

As Marshall put it: “If you like to eat fish, you should conserve sea turtles.”

The first part of the hospital will be paid for through donations and university funds. But they still need a few million more to finish it off.