Michael Schneider, a pilot with Pilots to Rescue, flies eight cold-stunned sea turtles from Massachusetts to North Carolina with his six-year-old son Jack on his birthday. The 10-hour flight brings the turtles to warmer water where they'll recover and be released back into the ocean.
I got up.
I saw you did. So today we are flying 6 endangered sea turtles. We're flying them down to North Carolina where the waters are warmer, and we're going to watch them being released on the beach into the ocean. Really special transport today. Jack's my oldest son. He turned 6 yesterday, and as a present to him, I'm bringing him along. And are you excited to be flying with Pilots to Rescue today?
Yeah. Uh, we're going to rescue turtles.
Hey, Bill.
Hey, Michael, we're here. Yay, the turtle's here. Hi.
Hey, Victoria. Hey, man.
We'll probably get 2 of these here, right?
Okay. We had 8 sea turtles ready for release yesterday after they had cold stunned in Massachusetts, and now that they're ready to go, we want to get them back out to the wild as soon as possible. To find the warm water temperatures that they need this time of year. That would take us about 10, 10.5 hours or so. So the flight with Pilots to Rescue and Turtles Fly Too is a tremendous help. When you get to the ocean, it's incredible because they hear the surf and they smell that salt air and they literally get excited in the crates. They start bouncing around. They're ready to go. They know where they're at. They know where they want to be. Awesome that you could donate the flight to us. Thank you so much. Glad you could be a part of it. It's just incredible to watch their journey back to health, to see their fight and their struggle, and they don't give up. So as long as they don't give up, we're not going to give up.
It's a little hard.
