SeaWorld Orlando and Epcot at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando are pitching in with the animal rescue efforts launched as a result of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven very sick Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles were flown into Orlando via twin engine plane Friday. They were being treated for pneumonia at Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport, Mississippi, but there are so many other animals that need to be treated at the Gulfport facility, SeaWorld and Epcot’s The Seas facility offered to take in the turtles and nurse them back to health.

The Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle is the most endangered and rarest sea turtle in the world. It was critically endangered before the oil spill, and it’s estimated that over 150 sea turtles have died since the Deep Horizon oil spill, most of them Kemp’s Ridleys. Unfortunately, the area where the spill took place is the sea turtles’ only breeding ground. The population of this sea creature has been decimated because of habitat loss, pollution, and entanglement in shrimping nets.

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