{"id":1561,"date":"2008-11-13T22:46:21","date_gmt":"2008-11-14T02:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=1561"},"modified":"2008-11-13T22:46:21","modified_gmt":"2008-11-14T02:46:21","slug":"november-springs-deathtrap-on-turtle-hatchlings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=1561","title":{"rendered":"November Springs Deathtrap on Turtle Hatchlings"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Sunny November Lures Terrapin Hatchlings into Deathtrap<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the Great White North we’ve enjoyed a long string of beautiful November weather.\u00c2\u00a0 This normally\u00c2\u00a0overcast month has been sparked by sunshine and temperatures poking into the upper fifties.\u00c2\u00a0 Clear skies allow dunes to bake under the sun, and while humans and seals and other warm blooded-critters savor the unexpected warmth, these\u00c2\u00a0unusual conditions\u00c2\u00a0lure diamondback terrapin hatchlings to their death.\u00c2\u00a0 Twelve babies would have died on Monday if not for the serendipitous\u00c2\u00a0intervention of the Turtle Journal team.<\/p>\n

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Cold-Stunned, Blinded Diamondback Terrapin Hatchling<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sunny November played a cruel trick on hatchlings over-wintering in late nests.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0White sandy\u00c2\u00a0dunes absorbed days of sunshine, baking terrapin egg chambers buried several inches below ground.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Warm sand\u00c2\u00a0coaxed babies out of winter brumation, cuing these tiny hatchlings to tunnel\u00c2\u00a0for freedom.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0In a normal overcast fall, without a long string of sunny November days, these hatched but unemerged babies would have slept in their nests\u00c2\u00a0until the first warm days of May.\u00c2\u00a0 Cold-blooded turtles don’t “hibernate” like mammals, sleeping straight through the winter until springtime.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead, these reptiles “brumate.”\u00c2\u00a0 Although the two processes are similar, the difference\u00c2\u00a0can be\u00c2\u00a0critical if a bit subtle.\u00c2\u00a0 Brumation is triggered by temperature alone and not by season of the year.\u00c2\u00a0 A cold snap can drive turtles into summer brumation and a warm stretch in November or December can prompt reptiles to emerge from brumation … while hibernating mammals are snugly snoring away.\u00c2\u00a0 For baby hatchlings, that tiny difference can be fatal … as it would have been on November 10th.<\/p>\n

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Confused Terrapin Hatchling Tracks<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Turtle Journal team had to split up on Monday.\u00c2\u00a0 One half attended a board of trustees meeting, and the lucky half got to head into the field to adventure and to look for nature to happen.\u00c2\u00a0 Pure serendipity brought Sue (the lucky half) to Sandy Neck in Barnstable for a stroll through the dunes along the salt marsh trail.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0An early\u00c2\u00a0indication that something was surely amiss was finding\u00c2\u00a0hatchling tracks scattered across the dunes in confused patterns that seemed to circle and close on themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 First, 10 November is NOT a day when one expects to see ANY terrapin tracks.\u00c2\u00a0 But secondly, the confused patterns indicated that these hatchlings were in BIG trouble.<\/p>\n

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Click Here to View Video in HIgh Quality<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Cold-Stunned Terrapin Hatchlings Wander Blindly in Circles<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Scouting the tracks, Sue soon found her first cold-stunned hatchling, stumbling across the dune, eyes blinded by the cold, wandering in circles.\u00c2\u00a0 Once these hatchlings had emerged from their warmed nests, the stinging reality of cold November winds\u00c2\u00a0nearly flash froze their dreams of scrambling to freedom in the marsh.\u00c2\u00a0 Their\u00c2\u00a0body temperatures dropped, they entered a walking stupor,\u00c2\u00a0and they were cold to the touch.\u00c2\u00a0 Their eyes were closed and their limbs stiff.\u00c2\u00a0 They crawled aimlessly until some just froze in place.<\/p>\n

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Click Here to View Video in High Quality<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Wobbly, Blinded, Cold-Stunned Hatchlings Near Death<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In all, Sue rescued twelve cold-stunned and nearly dead hatchlings.\u00c2\u00a0 Unfortunately, she was too late to save two others\u00c2\u00a0that had already succumbed to hypothermia.\u00c2\u00a0 Luckily, we have had extensive experience dealing with cold-stunned sea turtles\u00c2\u00a0and have\u00c2\u00a0successfully applied those techniques to their non-migratory marine brethren.\u00c2\u00a0 Once out of the\u00c2\u00a0debilitating wind, rescued babies began to breath more easily and to relax their frozen muscles.\u00c2\u00a0 A few opened their eyes as they rested in secure container for the ride back to the lab at Turtle Journal Headquarters.<\/p>\n

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Click Here to View Video in High Quality<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Cold-Stunned Hatchlings Recuperating in Warm Tank<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

We are always amazed at how resilient terrapins can be.\u00c2\u00a0 Given a few hours of gradual, gentle warming and appropriate TLC, baby turtles that seemed within a whisper of death snapped back to playful liveliness.\u00c2\u00a0 We understand only too well that these hatchlings may not be able to return to the wild until next spring.\u00c2\u00a0 But their return to the salt marsh in May is a superior outcome to becoming crow bait in November.<\/p>\n

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Maze of Hatchling Tracks Leading Nowhere<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

One question we needed to assess was whether these cold-stunned hatchlings\u00c2\u00a0had newly emerged from a nest or had emerged sometime in the past, but decided to remain buried upland … as we have observed for some subset of hatchlings.\u00c2\u00a0 Two key factors decided in favor of newly emerged nests.\u00c2\u00a0 First, all the hatchling still sported an extremely sharp egg tooth, suggesting that they had recently pipped.\u00c2\u00a0 Secondly, Sue back-tracked most of these hatchlings to emergence holes and nests.<\/p>\n

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Cold-Stunned Hatchling Collapses after Blind Wandering<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

November 10th sets a record for diamondback terrapin emergence within our research area.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, we have seen a single hatchling now and then in late fall, but never so many that clearly had emerged directly from their natal nest.\u00c2\u00a0 The Turtle Journal team was lucky to be on hand to document the event and to save twelve hatchlings that had been tricked by a cruel November into a certain deathtrap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunny November Lures Terrapin Hatchlings into Deathtrap In the Great White North we’ve enjoyed a long string of beautiful November weather.\u00c2\u00a0 This normally\u00c2\u00a0overcast month has been sparked by sunshine and temperatures poking into the upper fifties.\u00c2\u00a0 Clear skies allow dunes to bake under the sun, and while humans and seals and other warm blooded-critters savor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1561"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1608,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561\/revisions\/1608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}