WBRZ - Baton Rouge

The first group of sea turtles that are part of a sweeping effort to save threatened and endangered hatchlings from death in the oily Gulf of Mexico have been released into the Atlantic Ocean.

Officials say 22 endangered Kemp's ridley turtles were released on a beach at Florida's Canaveral National Seashore on July 11.

The eggs were collected from a nest June 26 along the Florida Panhandle and brought to a temperature-controlled warehouse at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, where state and federal officials plan to bring thousands more eggs for incubation in the coming months.

The effort is part of a plan to pluck some 70,000 eggs from nests on Alabama and Florida beaches before they hatch and swim out into the oil from the April 20 rig explosion off Louisiana.