It's like a scene from a horror film... dozens of dolls keep washing up on the shores on Texas.
The Mission-Aransas Reserve is a group that survey's the shores of the U.S. in order to preserve wildlife and make sure there are no drastic environmental issues. They have found about 30 creepy dolls on the beaches since January of 2021. Someone thought to try and sell one of the dolls online and it went for $35. The donated the money to help the sea turtles.
"We're actually doing scientific work, but the dolls are a perk," Jace Tunnell, director of the Mission-Aransas Reserve at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute, told McClatchy News.
They were a little creeped out at first but now have found a way to help wildlife by auctioning the dolls for charity.
The group goes out on the shore about twice a week and often finds these dolls that are very tattered and worn. Some are missing body parts or eye balls from the elements they've been exposed to.
More scary for the group is that a two-year study conducted by the UT Marine Science Institute found those beaches receive 10 times the amount of washed-up trash as Gulf of Mexico beaches in Florida and Mississippi.
Tunnell said one of the main reasons for the exponential trash deposits are because of a "loop current" stretching from the Yucatan Peninsula to Florida. This current pushes the trash towards the Texas coast.