{"id":1665,"date":"2008-11-20T10:06:49","date_gmt":"2008-11-20T14:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=1665"},"modified":"2008-12-01T17:41:20","modified_gmt":"2008-12-01T21:41:20","slug":"tiny-kemps-ridley-rescued-in-freezing-conditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=1665","title":{"rendered":"Tiny Kemp’s Ridley Rescued in Freezing Conditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle @ Linnell Landing, Brewster<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

She may not have been the smallest Kemp’s ridley sea turtle we’ve ever rescued from Cape Cod Bay.\u00c2\u00a0 Don seems to remember a 1200-gram ridley from early in the 1999 mass standing season.\u00c2\u00a0 But at 8.5 inches straight-line length (nuchal to notch) and 1470 grams mass, this seriously cold-stunned sea turtle surely fell in the lowest 1 percentile size class.\u00c2\u00a0 With that size and the razor sharp points along her vertebral keel, we assessed her as a very young ridley.\u00c2\u00a0 She proved a great find for the Turtle Journal team as we patrolled Brewster (Cape Cod) beaches on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

(ASIDE:\u00c2\u00a0 No, we don’t know that this turtle is a female, but we can be hopeful and “she” reads better than “it.”)<\/p>\n

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Brewster Coastline from Breakwater (left) to Crosby (right)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Howling winds\u00c2\u00a0persisted on the Cape, shifting to north-northwest at 25 to 30 knots.\u00c2\u00a0 Temperatures had dropped so fast that moisture had rapidily precipitated from super chilled clouds, producing\u00c2\u00a0our first snowfall of the season.\u00c2\u00a0 Perfect sea turtle stranding conditions on Cape Cod!\u00c2\u00a0 As we described previously (Leapfrogging Sea Turtle Patrol Yields Surprise<\/a>), the wind vector indicated a center point for the stranding search along the northeast-facing Brewster coastline.\u00c2\u00a0 We decided to begin our patrol at Breakwater Beach (left edge of Google photo) and leapfrog to Point of Rocks, Ellis, Linnell and end at Crosby Beach (right of photo), a little over three miles to the east.\u00c2\u00a0 The trick to survive these brutal conditions (for the two-legged mammals, that is) is to keep the wind at your back or over your shoulder as you search the beach.<\/p>\n

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Tiny Kemp’s Ridley Tossed on the Beach by a Rising Tide<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The sun flashed in and out of clouds as wind\u00c2\u00a0flung them across the sky as easily as the crashing waves tossed debris on the beach.\u00c2\u00a0 Aided by the blow, the rising tide forced us to dance across seawalls and zigzag through sand fencing as we were pinned to the dunes by breakers.\u00c2\u00a0 And, yes, we did get a bit wet, mostly from spray but also when we were trapped by a few overly aggressive waves.<\/p>\n

With nothing to show for 2.9 miles of the 3 mile trek, we were torn between elation to get back in the warm car and disappointment in not finding a cold-stunned turtle to rescue.\u00c2\u00a0 But those feelings turned around in an adrenaline rush as Don spotted a dark oval shape thrown onto the white foamy beach about a 100 yards ahead.\u00c2\u00a0 It had all the right characteristics of shape and color, but it was awfully small.\u00c2\u00a0 Waves began to circle and retrieve the object in the rising tide, so he sprinted and caught the turtle as water started to drag it back into the surf.<\/p>\n

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

Kemp’s Ridley Beach Rescue and Field Assessment<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Kemp’s ridleys are critically endangered sea turtles.\u00c2\u00a0 Each fall a large number of juvenile ridleys in the two to four year age cohorts get trapped in hook of Cape Cod by fall’s dropping temperatures and become cold-stunned in the bay.\u00c2\u00a0 Once water temperature drops below 50 degrees, they become helpless and are at the mercy of wind and tides for movement.\u00c2\u00a0 Eventually, the prevailing autumn westerly gales blow these turtles onto a high tide beach along the inner, bayside beaches.\u00c2\u00a0 The earlier in the season those strandings occur, the higher the percentage of animals that we can save.\u00c2\u00a0 This year has been calm and mild, delaying the stranding and jeopardizing turtle lives.\u00c2\u00a0 But that all changed the last few days, and especially on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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Measuring 8.5 Inches and Weighing 1470 Grams<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Once at the car, we did a quick field assessment.\u00c2\u00a0 The first\u00c2\u00a0procedure to check is whether you can get a reaction from the animal to indicate that it is still alive.\u00c2\u00a0 One thing that we have learned through the decades of cold-stunned rescues is that it is nearly impossible to determine for sure … absent rigor mortis … whether a sea turtle, beating its heart once a minute, is alive or dead.\u00c2\u00a0 But it helps to know for sure that you have a live animal, at least for the human spirit, anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 This little turtle was not in rigor, and showed some eyelid reaction and muscle movement in the front flippers.<\/p>\n

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Cold-Stunned Kemp’s Ridley with Algae Buildup on Plastron <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

You can see from the plastron (bottom\/ventral surface) that algae has accumulated during the turtle’s period of stupor.\u00c2\u00a0 Also, the reddish skin near the posterior flippers indicates blood pooling from reduced circulatory flow while its heart rate has been so slow.<\/p>\n

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

First Stop to Recovery: Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

First stop on her journey to recovery is\u00c2\u00a0Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary,\u00c2\u00a0turtle rescue central on\u00c2\u00a0Cape Cod.\u00c2\u00a0 The turtle will undergo triage at the sanctuary and will be stabilized in a “cold room”\u00c2\u00a0while transport is arranged to Boston.\u00c2\u00a0 At the New England Aquarium, the turtle will receive emergency medical care and\u00c2\u00a0will undergo rehabilitation.\u00c2\u00a0 The reason for the “cold room” is that these animals must not be allowed to warm\u00c2\u00a0up too quickly.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Protocol calls for about five degrees a day.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why, once we have\u00c2\u00a0rescued a sea turtle from the beach, we turn off the heat in our cars, crack the windows and shiver all the way to the sanctuary.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Kemp’s Ridley Rescue from Linnell Landing<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sea turtle patrols will continue so long as the winds sustain.\u00c2\u00a0 Twice a day, at each high tide, a small army of layered and bundled volunteers will patrol beaches in search of cold-stunned sea turtles.\u00c2\u00a0 If they are as lucky as the Turtle Journal team was on Wednesday, they too will return to their cars with a precious handful of life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle @ Linnell Landing, Brewster She may not have been the smallest Kemp’s ridley sea turtle we’ve ever rescued from Cape Cod Bay.\u00c2\u00a0 Don seems to remember a 1200-gram ridley from early in the 1999 mass standing season.\u00c2\u00a0 But at 8.5 inches straight-line length (nuchal to notch) and 1470 grams mass, this […]<\/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\/1665"}],"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=1665"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1787,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665\/revisions\/1787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}