{"id":2462,"date":"2009-03-23T21:35:32","date_gmt":"2009-03-24T02:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=2462"},"modified":"2010-01-16T12:38:53","modified_gmt":"2010-01-16T17:38:53","slug":"severely-cold-stunned-terrapin-rescued-from-wellfleets-chipmans-cove-on-saint-patricks-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=2462","title":{"rendered":"Severely Cold-Stunned Terrapin Rescued from Wellfleet’s Chipman’s Cove on Saint Patrick’s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2074-002\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Female Diamondback Terrapin #2074<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Andy Koch, the Town of Wellfleet shellfish warden, rescued a severely cold-stunned diamondback terrapin from Chipman’s Cove during the low tide of Saint Patrick’s Day.\u00c2\u00a0 This mature female turtle had been unearthed from her winter hibernaculum and had become exposed to frigid nighttime conditions on the Outer Cape.\u00c2\u00a0 Andy called Mass Audubon<\/a>‘s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary<\/a> to report the find and graciously offered to transport the critically injured animal to the sanctuary for treatment and rehabilitation.\u00c2\u00a0 You may recall that another frozen female terrapin had been rescued from Chipman’s Cove in late February (see Frozen Diamondback Terrapin Rescued from Near Certain Death in Wellfleet Harbor<\/a>).\u00c2\u00a0 This turtle, #2102, is fully recovered and waiting impatiently to be released once waters in Wellfleet reach 55 degrees F.<\/p>\n

\"2074-001\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Burst Blood Vessels from Freezing<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Even a cursory examination of her condition indicated that her greatest exposure to freezing conditions had involved her head and forelimbs.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Several times\u00c2\u00a0in the spring when Don has observed terrapins emerging from brumation (reptilian hibernation), he has spotted them still partially buried with head and forelimbs exposed, as though they had burrowed into the mud tail down and head up.\u00c2\u00a0 In this turtle’s case, she exhibited fresh bleeding from both eyes and her mouth.<\/p>\n

\"2074-004\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Eyes Still Show Effects of Burst Vessels<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Later, after she was cleaned and gradually warmed, her eyes still showed the effects of burst blood vessels, presumably from the freezing cold.\u00c2\u00a0 Also, she began to\u00c2\u00a0exhibit signs of earlier subcutaneous bleeding in her forelimbs, indicating that they too had been exposed to freezing conditions.\u00c2\u00a0 We worry about the bleeding in the eyes because in several previous cases, it has been an indicator of some sort of brain damage that prevented the animal’s full recovery.\u00c2\u00a0 In these cases, the turtles were unable to navigate when released into the\u00c2\u00a0 wild.\u00c2\u00a0 They would either move endlessly\u00c2\u00a0in circles or later be found back on shore motionless\u00c2\u00a0in the spot where they\u00c2\u00a0had been\u00c2\u00a0released.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

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

Examination of Cold-Stunned Turtle After 72 Hours of Rehab<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

72-hours into her rehab, she is moving slowly, but independently, and she is tracking light and movement.\u00c2\u00a0 Obviously, you can see from the video clip that this severely injured animal has a long way to go.\u00c2\u00a0 But she’s a reptile and reptiles are extremely resilient critters.<\/p>\n

\"trek\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Nesting Trek for Diamondback Terrapin #2074<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

We were able to identify this mature female as a previously captured and marked terrapin.\u00c2\u00a0 Wheaton College<\/a> interns had originally found, measured and marked\u00c2\u00a0#2074 on June 27th, 2005 on a nesting run at Anawan Road off the Fox Island Wildlife Management Area to the south.\u00c2\u00a0 To reach this nesting\u00c2\u00a0location\u00c2\u00a0from her brumation site, #2074 would have had to make a one-way 4.5 mile trek.\u00c2\u00a0 Since Wellfleet terrapins generally nest twice annually, separated by an average of 17 days between clutches, and since they generally return to the mating aggregation in Chipman’s Cove between nesting runs, #2074 would have made this 4.5 mile trek four times\u00c2\u00a0a year.<\/p>\n

In 2005, #2074 measured 18.1 cm straight-line carapace length, weighed 1041 grams with eggs, and was assessed as 10 years old.\u00c2\u00a0 On March 17th, 2009 she had grown to 19.0 cm carapace length and weighed 1231 grams without eggs.\u00c2\u00a0 Obviously, she still sported the same split 5th vertebral with three scutes (see photograph at beginning of post), a nice anomaly that helps to\u00c2\u00a0confirm her identification.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Female Diamondback Terrapin #2074 Andy Koch, the Town of Wellfleet shellfish warden, rescued a severely cold-stunned diamondback terrapin from Chipman’s Cove during the low tide of Saint Patrick’s Day.\u00c2\u00a0 This mature female turtle had been unearthed from her winter hibernaculum and had become exposed to frigid nighttime conditions on the Outer Cape.\u00c2\u00a0 Andy called Mass […]<\/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\/2462"}],"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=2462"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3951,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462\/revisions\/3951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}