Sea Turtle Secrets: Necropsies Reveal Important Information
Each fall, when the water temperatures in Cape Cod Bay start to dip, immobilized cold-stunned sea turtles start washing up on Cape Cod beaches. The rescuers at Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary (Wellfleet Audubon) in Wellfleet, Massachusetts spring into action, walking the beaches to collect the turtles, and then attending to the dozens of frigid turtles that can be nursed back to health. As the staff triage the incoming patients–checking for heartbeats, eyelid reactions, and other signs of life–they stack the turtles that are definitely dead in a corner.
In the last five years, an average of almost 600 cold-stunned sea turtles stranded in Massachusetts each year. In the fall, these turtles start heading south, but get trapped by the hook-shape of Cape Cod, keeping them stuck in the cooling waters of the north. Wellfleet Audubon responds to every one of those turtles, an effort that involves hundreds of volunteers in the field and at their facility working non-stop through the cold stunning season months of October through early January.
Some turtles don’t beat the cold, but the survivors go on to treatment and rehabilitation at the New England Aquarium. Once healthy, they are driven or flown to beaches south for release back to the ocean, where we hope they live long, happy, and warm lives.
The story isn’t over for the turtles that don’t make it.
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Turtle News From Around the World
Conservation
USA:- Lost sea turtle trying to nest ended up on an Anna Maria Island road. Volunteers came to her rescue
Kenya:- World Sea Turtle Day with Ellie Goulding (Video)
USA:- Federal Managers Recommend Sea Turtle Measures for Hawaii Shallow-Set Longliners
Crime & Punishment
Peru:- 26 giant Galapagos tortoises found in a Peru bus are returned to Ecuador
Education
Reasearch Paper:- Reproductive ecology of the endangered Beal’s-eyed turtle, Sacalia bealei
Health & Medical
USA:- Tortoise found covered in red paint released into the wild
New Zealand:- Injured turtle found on Whangārei footpath has surgery and new home (Video)
Miscellany
UK:- Meet 30 tortoises looking for a new home in Norfolk
UK:- Lost poster drawn by 9 year old helped RSPCA track down tortoise
Canada:- Shopping carts cause turtle tangle behind Tim Hortons
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Photo from NOAA.
