{"id":3165,"date":"2009-10-17T15:12:55","date_gmt":"2009-10-17T20:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=3165"},"modified":"2010-01-16T11:33:44","modified_gmt":"2010-01-16T16:33:44","slug":"outer-cape-offers-adventure-of-rescue-and-discovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=3165","title":{"rendered":"Wellfleet Bay Offers Outer Cape Adventure of Rescue and Discovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recover Endangered Sea Turtles\u00c2\u00a0& <\/span>Marine <\/span><\/h2>\n

Megafauna from Storm Tossed Beaches<\/span><\/h2>\n

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

Fall Weather Front Passes Cape Cod Beach at Sunset<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Fall brings dramatic change to Cape Cod.\u00c2\u00a0 Not just foliage, but the whole fabric of seaside life transforms from easy summer to harsh winter.\u00c2\u00a0 Westerly winds howl across the bay and\u00c2\u00a0blow\u00c2\u00a0gentle wavelets into rumbling breakers that reshape beaches and\u00c2\u00a0deposit ocean treasure in the wrack line.\u00c2\u00a0 Buried among seaweed, flotsam and jetsam are adventure and discovery\u00c2\u00a0in the form of\u00c2\u00a0ocean creatures that are tossed ashore to succumb in these fierce conditions.\u00c2\u00a0 Thanks to beach patrols launched by Mass Audubon<\/a>‘s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary<\/a> over the past 20 years more than a thousand of the most endangered sea turtles in the world have been rescued from these impossible circumstances and restored back to the wild.\u00c2\u00a0 Countless marine mammals, ocean fishes and other sea critters have been recovered, and amazing discoveries have\u00c2\u00a0been chronicled in\u00c2\u00a0nature magazines and scientific journals.<\/p>\n

\"kr-19-nov-08-006-840\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tiny Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle Rescued in November 2008<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

On the weekend of\u00c2\u00a0November 13th to 15th, Mass Audubon\u00c2\u00a0invites a few adventurous individuals to join its crack team of rescuers.\u00c2\u00a0 (Click here for pdf narrative and schedule.<\/a>) From Friday to Sunday afternoon, teams will scour beaches from Provincetown to Dennis in search of distressed animals.\u00c2\u00a0 In between high tide patrols, participants will take a bayside cruise to Billingsgate Shoal to investigate grey seal populations, as well as overwintering seabirds and sea ducks.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Experts will reveal secrets of marine biology and ecology in seminar settings and one-on-one lab work, and still have time to join participants for quiet dinner conversation about the future of the world’s oceans and\u00c2\u00a0their most precious species.<\/p>\n

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

Sea Turtle Patrol Discovers Storm Tossed Seal<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Still, the most extraordinary\u00c2\u00a0adventures come with nighttime high tides.\u00c2\u00a0 In crisp November skies, stars\u00c2\u00a0hang like Christmas\u00c2\u00a0ornaments suspended in a shimmering, Milky garland\u00c2\u00a0hung across the constellations\u00c2\u00a0from Sagittarius in the south to Cassiopeia in the north.\u00c2\u00a0 Footsteps fall silently in the soft, moist sand.\u00c2\u00a0 The only sound comes from pounding surf that explodes in your path as an 11-foot flood tide recedes to reveal the secrets it left behind in the seaweed strewn wrack.\u00c2\u00a0 The beam of your flashlight arcs from dune to sea and back again, searching for mysterious shapes in dark shadows.<\/p>\n

\"0033<\/a><\/p>\n

Upside Down Kemp’s Ridely Rescued from Cape Cod Beach<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

You never know what the night may present.\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps a cold-stunned Kemp’s ridley sea turtle that has been tossed onto the beach by a northwesterly gale.\u00c2\u00a0 Recovering this semi-tropical animal from the cold darkness before hypothermia sets in overnight will make the difference between life and death for this turtle and may make the difference between survival and extinction for this critically endangered species.<\/p>\n

\"sunfish-11-nov-08-0031<\/a><\/p>\n

Seven Foot Ocean Sunfish<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Around another bend might lurk a giant ocean sunfish trapped on the flats by a receding tide.\u00c2\u00a0 This bizarre looking\u00c2\u00a0creature represents the largest bony fish in the ocean and can be found on Cape Cod beaches each fall.<\/p>\n

\"torpedo-ray-nps-18-nov-08-002-840\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Electric Torpedo Ray Found by Sea Turtle Patrol on Wellfleet Beach<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

For an electrifying experience, don’t discount a large torpedo ray that stuns its prey with 220 volt charge.\u00c2\u00a0 Ouch!\u00c2\u00a0 Last year brought nearly a dozen torpedo rays onto bayside beaches from Truro to Sandwich.<\/p>\n

Nature, especially on the Outer Cape, offers no guarantee of weather or animals.\u00c2\u00a0 Stranding events are driven by prolonged wind conditions, specific water temperatures and tidal flows.\u00c2\u00a0 The 13th through 15th of November were chosen because historically this period has been extremely active.\u00c2\u00a0 But\u00c2\u00a0no matter what\u00c2\u00a0has been found in the past, what\u00c2\u00a0is absolutely guaranteed to greet you around the next\u00c2\u00a0bend in the\u00c2\u00a0shoreline\u00c2\u00a0is the adventure and\u00c2\u00a0the challenge of the unknown.<\/p>\n

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

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

November Sunset Sea Turtle Patrol<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The bottom line is that the Ides of November offer\u00c2\u00a0a once-in-a-lifetime experience\u00c2\u00a0for the adventurer deep inside you; the one\u00c2\u00a0who remembers\u00c2\u00a0so fondly those great moments of summers past and who finds the\u00c2\u00a0walls of boardroom, classroom, operating room, living room, corner office or cubicle a bit too claustrophobic to endure the whole, long winter without a refreshing breath of cutting edge discovery.\u00c2\u00a0 Welcome to a weekend unlike anything you have ever experienced.\u00c2\u00a0 Welcome to the Marine Animal Stranding Weekend.<\/p>\n

For more information about this exceptional opportunity, contact Melissa Lowe (mlowe@massaudubon.org<\/a>)\u00c2\u00a0at Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary at 508-349-2615.\u00c2\u00a0 For a virtual preview of some of the experiences that may greet you, click on Turtle Journal<\/a> and enjoy the postings from November 2008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recover Endangered Sea Turtles\u00c2\u00a0& Marine Megafauna from Storm Tossed Beaches Fall Weather Front Passes Cape Cod Beach at Sunset Fall brings dramatic change to Cape Cod.\u00c2\u00a0 Not just foliage, but the whole fabric of seaside life transforms from easy summer to harsh winter.\u00c2\u00a0 Westerly winds howl across the bay and\u00c2\u00a0blow\u00c2\u00a0gentle wavelets into rumbling breakers that […]<\/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\/3165"}],"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=3165"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3186,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165\/revisions\/3186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}