For years, creepy dolls have washed up on a beach on Texas's coastal bend. According to Jace Tunnell, director of the Mission-Aransas Reserve at the University of Texas Marine Institute, he and his team of researchers have found more than 30 of them since they started counting. Now they auction off the dolls in an annual fundraiser. From the Forth Worth Star-Telegram:
"The first one we had found was a sex doll, the head of it. I posted a picture of it and I didn't realize that's what it was," he said. "We got a lot of followers on the page after that."
Someone purchased that doll head for $35, and Mission-Aransas gave the money to a sea turtle rescue program[…]
"Texas coastal bend beaches get 10 times the amount of trash … than any other beach in the Gulf of Mexico," Tunnell said, compared to what researchers in Florida and Mississippi found after conducting identical projects.
This is due in large part to a "loop current" reaching from the Yucatan Peninsula to Florida. This current creates eddies that push debris toward the Texas Gulf, and the Coastal Bend in particular.
