On July 29, a TikTok creator with the handle @whereswunna posted a video that soon gained over 16 million views.
In the video, a couple vacationing in Bridgetown, Barbados, comes across a baby sea turtle on the beach. It can be seen struggling in the sand, cresting tiny hills and pushing through seaweed as it makes its first journey to the ocean.
Throughout the clip, the woman expresses concern and asks why they can’t just pick it up and bring it closer to the surf.
“You can’t,” the man stresses, “you’re interrupting with nature.”
“This is so sad to watch,” she protests.
“No, it ain’t sad; he’s gonna live,” he insists, calling the turtle “Franklin.”
“You gonna live!” he says. “You gonna live, Frank!”
The couple stays a few feet away from the turtle as it crawls toward the water, while the man continues cheering: “Let’s go, Frank!”
The video, which was praised for its “infectious” energy, inspired thousands of good-natured comments.
Screenshot via @whereswunna/TikTok
“Now he’s Frank Ocean,” one person commented.
“This is actually very dangerous to the turtle’s development because now he will be expecting a hype man every time he does something,” another joked.
Others chimed in to validate his “no touch” approach to cheering on the turtle.
“I’m so happy that nobody interfered and allowed that little fledgling to do it on his own,” one TikTok user commented. “Live a good long life, Franklin!”
With sea turtle nesting season in full swing on beaches around the world, videos like this are bringing attention to the right — and wrong way — to interact with nature.
In an interview with Katherine Sayler, the southeast representative at Defenders of Wildlife, the marine biologist reaffirmed why it’s important not to interrupt a sea turtle’s first journey to the water.
“They need the imprinting on their native beach, so they can determine where to come back to nest, or — depending on the species — near-shore forage, in the future,” Katherine Sayler told Good Good Good.
“That actual physical journey from the nest into the ocean creates an imprinting so that they’re able to find it years and decades into the future, which is kind of an amazing feat of nature, but something that they have to do,” she said. “They have to finish that crawl to find that beach to come back to.”
On July 11, a creator named Luis Zelaya posted a similar TikTok video that skyrocketed to 6.1 million views.
In his clip, Zelaya finds a baby sea turtle blocks away from the nearest shore, crawling along a scorching sidewalk.
“I don’t know how this poor sea turtle got so far from the beach,” Zelaya wrote in the video’s caption, “And before some bird could hurt it, I helped it get back home to the Atlantic Ocean. May God protect it from anything.”
When they approached the water, the sea turtle hatchling began flapping its flippers in a swimming motion.
“Yay, yay!” Zelaya cheered. “We’re here!”
Instead of bringing the sea turtle straight to the water’s edge, he then set it down on the sand, a good distance away from the swelling surf, and waited for it to slowly crawl its way to the water.
“Thank you for putting her on the sand and making her get to the water herself,” a TikTok user commented. “That’s very important for the little baby. You did very well!”
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Featured Image: Wildlifeppl/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
