TAMPA, Fla. -- Sea turtles are returning to The Florida Aquarium Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Center just in time for winter.

The Florida Aquarium says people can visit the Apollo Beach center for free for the next few months.

Gracefully gliding inside tubs of water, sea turtles are being rehabilitated.

"When the turtles come here, they are cold stunned or maybe injured in some way," said Paiton Krebs, sea turtle biologist at The Florida Aquarium. "And what we do is we are a working veterinary hospital for all of these sea turtles."

It's all happening at The Florida Aquarium Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Center in Apollo Beach, where aquarium staff, like Paiton Krebs, help mend the turtles.

"When they come in, every single sea turtle gets a full work-up," said Krebs. "They'll get blood work done, they get a full exam by our veterinarians, we swim test them. We try to offer them food and from there we'll kind of initially assess how each one of these turtles is, some being much more critical than others and some needing a lot more care than the others."

These turtles come from the northeast in Massachusetts as well as Florida's east coast. This year, the rehab center saw a record number of 75 sea turtles, at one point housing 56 critical sea turtles. Staff say this record number can be attributed to an abnormally long, cold winter, as well as Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

"There's a lot of times where they'll float out in the ocean for weeks at a time, so they become super skinny," Krebs said. "They get skin infections, and they're really not able to take care of themselves until eventually somebody finds them or they wash up on a beach."

"They're often referred to as skunks of the forest."

At The Florida Aquarium, visitors can learn how its staff of biologists takes care of not only sea turtles, but other animals as well, such as Cayenne the southern tamandua.

"He's part of our animal ambassador department," said Madeline Strauss, biologist at The Florida Aquarium. "So we do have a wide range of animals behind-the-scenes that come out, and we focus a lot on educating about the species and also their conservation messages."

It's through this animal ambassador program that is helping inspire the future biologists of tomorrow.

"We want all of our visitors to be up close and personal with these animals so that they feel inspired to do their part to help out wildlife as well," says Strauss. "Even just making daily choices like reduce, reuse, recycle or even reusing single plastics. Any small bit people here at the aquarium can do after they fall in love with these animals."

It's all showing a mutual bond between humans and these majestic creatures.

The Florida Aquarium is offering free admission to all veterans now through Veterans Day. If you happen to see a sea turtle in distress, there is a wildlife hotline phone number to call: 888-404-FWCC.