{"id":2855,"date":"2009-07-05T21:01:07","date_gmt":"2009-07-06T02:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=2855"},"modified":"2010-01-16T12:06:09","modified_gmt":"2010-01-16T17:06:09","slug":"two-tragic-turtle-accidents-on-lieutenant-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=2855","title":{"rendered":"Two Tragic Turtle Accidents on Lieutenant Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"lt-island-tragedy\"<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Location Where Two Threatened Turtles Were Run Over<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

For a conservation researcher, the death of a single mature female in a threatened population is painful.\u00c2\u00a0 The needless\u00c2\u00a0crushing of two nesting females within 50 feet and 50 minutes of each other by\u00c2\u00a0Lieutenant Island drivers on\u00c2\u00a0Friday morning\u00c2\u00a0ranks beyond tragic.\u00c2\u00a0 It is devastating to the affected species and it doesn’t say\u00c2\u00a0anything postive\u00c2\u00a0about the effecting species, either.<\/p>\n

[Editor’s note:<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, we do have photographs of these animals to document the scene and their condition, but we are not posting them to our web site because they would offend … and anger … readers.\u00c2\u00a0 They are available for state and local authorities at their request.\u00c2\u00a0 The images of the scene that you will see below avoid showing the animals themselves.]<\/p>\n

\"first-turtle-002-scene-840\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Scene of First Turtle Incident<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The first turtle was run over by a driver that continued on his way, then was\u00c2\u00a0moved to the side of the road by a bystander who assumed she was dead.\u00c2\u00a0 Her carapace was split open with blood oozing every where; yet she clung tenaciously to life.<\/p>\n

\"second-turtle-death-004-scene-840\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Scene of Second Turtle Incident<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

While the Turtle Journal team sped her to Wildcare<\/a> in Eastham for emergency treatment, a second female\u00c2\u00a0turtle was crushed to death at nearly the same spot.\u00c2\u00a0 According to witnesses, a commercial fuel truck making a delivery to a cottage on the second island ran over her on its way out.\u00c2\u00a0 She was crushed so badly that\u00c2\u00a0the center line of her carapace split open and eggs squirted across the road.\u00c2\u00a0 Fully encased first clutch eggs that she was about to lay, as well as unfertilized eggs for her second clutch which she would have laid in another 17 days,\u00c2\u00a0were scattered across\u00c2\u00a0the roadway.\u00c2\u00a0 An island visitor\u00c2\u00a0sobbed as we removed the carcass and harvested the eggs.\u00c2\u00a0 Even the thought that we would try to save her DNA by incubating and protecting six potentially viable eggs we salvaged did little to abate the tears.<\/p>\n

How Much Damage?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Due to high egg depredation and huge mortality of the few hatchlings that emerge, it\u00c2\u00a0can take a mature female\u00c2\u00a0two to four\u00c2\u00a0decades of continuous nesting just\u00c2\u00a0to reproduce\u00c2\u00a0a replacement for herself.\u00c2\u00a0 Turtle reproductive strategies grind exceedingly slow, which makes it so difficult to restore populations declining under the pressure of human influence.\u00c2\u00a0 The loss of breeding females, that are not plagued by a biological clock to limit productivity as they advance in years, and that actually\u00c2\u00a0produce more viable hatchlings as they age and grow; the loss of these female terrapins to the population is simply tragic and unsustainable.\u00c2\u00a0 Two other female nesters were killed on Indian Neck roads on the other side of Blackfish Creekd, another\u00c2\u00a0road fatality was found today near the dike on Chequessett Neck Road,\u00c2\u00a0and at least one other was squashed while on a nesting run in Eastham.\u00c2\u00a0 This year has proven a bad season for nesting terrapins.\u00c2\u00a0 Reports have been filed for eight or nine diamondback terrapins run over on the Outer Cape, mostly in Wellfleet, so far this nesting season … with the second clutch nesting runs yet to commence!<\/p>\n

Mitigating Damage<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"wildcare-003-840\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Don Lewis of Turtle Journal and Lela Lamed of WildCare<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The first turtle is being treated at Wildcare<\/a> where they will attempt to save her, and at the very least, to harvest her eggs for incubation.\u00c2\u00a0 When we examined her at the scene, she still had function and response in each limb.\u00c2\u00a0 The crack to the carapace did not extend across the vertebral.\u00c2\u00a0 So, we are hopeful, but realistic.\u00c2\u00a0 Such damage takes months and months to repair … if ever.<\/p>\n

\"2nd-dead-terp-eggs-002-840\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Six Potentially Viable Eggs from Lieutenant Island Road Kill<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sue Wieber Nourse of the Turtle Journal team harvested six potentially viable eggs from the dead terrapin.\u00c2\u00a0 She carefully encased them in a sealed, cushioned and moist container for transport to a safe incubation site on the other side of the island.\u00c2\u00a0 Don dug a turtle nest at the appropriate sand depth and optimal location for incubation at\u00c2\u00a0 Turtle Point, then capped this mini-nest with a predator excluder.\u00c2\u00a0 Sue and Don will watch it carefully through the summer with the expectation that we will find hatchlings emerging from these eggs around Labor Day Weekend.\u00c2\u00a0 Watch TurtleJournal.com<\/a> for “the rest of the story.”<\/p>\n

Good News?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, when you’re in the field with Turtle Journal, there’s always good news to balance the bad.\u00c2\u00a0 At the scene of these two terrible accidents, Sue collected several other female terrapins on nesting runs amidst the July 4th weekend traffic.\u00c2\u00a0 We moved them to a much safer location before more damage could be done.<\/p>\n

\"9754-front-first-time-nester-840\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Young Female Terrapin on Her First Nesting Run<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

One of these ladies was a young turtle that\u00c2\u00a0came out of Wellfleet Bay for the very first time to deposit her eggs.\u00c2\u00a0 While our 30 year longitudinal study has allowed us to identify first time nesters, this one was the first such first time nester that we found en route to her nest.\u00c2\u00a0 We took precise weights and measurements to tease as much scientific data as possible about this rare event.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, when we moved her to a safer location out of the press of vehicular traffic, she immediately began to dig her nest and lay her eggs right in front of us.\u00c2\u00a0 We videographed and photo-documented the entire event, and we were able to acquire even more data on\u00c2\u00a0her eggs and\u00c2\u00a0on her body\u00c2\u00a0weight\u00c2\u00a0after she laid them.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Because we don’t want to draw tonight’s post out too long, we will save the rest of this upbeat story for the next posting.\u00c2\u00a0 Stay tuned!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00c2\u00a0 Location Where Two Threatened Turtles Were Run Over For a conservation researcher, the death of a single mature female in a threatened population is painful.\u00c2\u00a0 The needless\u00c2\u00a0crushing of two nesting females within 50 feet and 50 minutes of each other by\u00c2\u00a0Lieutenant Island drivers on\u00c2\u00a0Friday morning\u00c2\u00a0ranks beyond tragic.\u00c2\u00a0 It is devastating to the affected species […]<\/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\/2855"}],"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=2855"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2875,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2855\/revisions\/2875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}