{"id":3515,"date":"2009-11-18T12:14:34","date_gmt":"2009-11-18T17:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=3515"},"modified":"2010-01-16T09:47:45","modified_gmt":"2010-01-16T14:47:45","slug":"stranding-weekend-in-teeth-of-noreaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=3515","title":{"rendered":"Stranding Weekend in Teeth of Nor’easter"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Quarter Ton Ocean Sunfish Moved to Sanctuary<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Stranding Weekend field adventure offered by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary<\/a> in mid November is\u00c2\u00a0clearly a hands-on,\u00c2\u00a0participatory event.\u00c2\u00a0 As a gentle fall lingered into the Ides of November, there were concerns that the pre-planned Stranding Weekend would prove nothing more than “a walk on the beach.”<\/p>\n

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Breakers Roll into Scusset Beach in Bourne<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Thanks to Mother Nature, Hurricane Ida, then tropical storm and finally powerful nor’easter pounded Cape Cod with driving rain and gale force winds blowing directly from the North Atlantic.\u00c2\u00a0 While water and air temperatures remained a tad too high to induce cold-stunned sea turtle strandings, the Cape presented a variety of marine species to observe, especially during and immediately after a nor’easter.<\/p>\n

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

Night Sea Turtle Patrol in Teeth of Nor’easter<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

After a wonderful candlelight dinner in the Wellfleet Bay Nature Center Friday evening, participants endured a brief stranding introduction by weekend leaders, Bob Prescott (sanctuary director), Dennis Murley (senior naturalist), Sue Wieber Nourse (marine scientist and master educator) and Don Lewis (Turtle Guy).\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone bundled into layers upon layers of hopefully waterproof clothing, adjusted headlamps and flashlights, loaded into the\u00c2\u00a0Mass Audubon\u00c2\u00a0van and the Turtle Journal Element and headed to Chapin Beach in Dennis in search for stranded creatures at the nighttime high tide.<\/p>\n

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Sandy Neck Teams <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Led by Dennis Murley (center) & Sue Wieber Nourse (right)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Bright and early Saturday morning, participants geared up again.\u00c2\u00a0 Two teams led by Dennis Murley and Sue Wieber Nourse climbed in the van to head to the Sandy Neck barrier beach\u00c2\u00a0in West Barnstable.\u00c2\u00a0 With winds blowing from the east northeast, stranded animals were more likely to be found on beaches at the west end of Cape Cod.<\/p>\n

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Chipman’s Cove Team Discovers Quarter Ton Ocean Sunfish<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Another team under Don Lewis patrolled Scusset Beach on the other side of Cape Cod Canal in Bourne, then hit Campground Beach in Eastham to confirm the stranding of a juvenile torpedo ray and finally visited\u00c2\u00a0Chipman’s Cove in Wellfleet to document a freshly stranded male ocean sunfish.<\/p>\n

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Examination of Male Ocean Sunfish at Chipman’s Cove<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

After teams reassembled at the Sanctuary for a great lunch, it was time to saddle up and put our backs into the enormous channel of moving the quarter ton, male ocean sunfish from the beach at Chipman’s Cove to the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary for a scientific necropsy.\u00c2\u00a0 You may recall that the scientific name for ocean sunfish (Mola mola<\/em>) is derived from the Latin word for millstone.\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps that gives you some idea of the challenge ahead.<\/p>\n

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

Moving Quarter Ton Ocean Sunfish to Necropsy<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Nothing creates comraderie more solidly than a backbreaking team build … and moving a quarter ton deadweight more than qualifies as a backbreaking exercise.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0You sign up for hands-on experience; you get hands-on experience!\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Measuring Length of Male Ocean Sunfish<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Back at the sanctuary with the Mola mola<\/em> intact, participants began the process of taking detailed measurements.\u00c2\u00a0 Krill Carson of NEBShark<\/a> joined the leadership team on Saturday\u00c2\u00a0for a scientific necropsy of the ocean sunfish.<\/p>\n

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Measuring Dorsal Fin of Male Ocean Sunfish<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Once external measurements were completed,\u00c2\u00a0a detailed\u00c2\u00a0necropsy commenced to scientifically document the anatomy of the Mola mola<\/em> species and to collect certain tissue samples for further\u00c2\u00a0analysis.\u00c2\u00a0 During the autopsy, we determined that this animal was a male.<\/p>\n

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Juvenile Female Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The next morning began with a necropsy of a juvenile Kemp’s ridley sea turtle that had stranded on Sandy Neck beach the previous weekend.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Bob Prescott Prepares Necropsy of Female Kemp’s Ridley<\/em><\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite a large, well-healed\u00c2\u00a0probable shark bite in its lower right quadrant, this specimen was\u00c2\u00a0assessed to have been in rather healthy condition prior to getting trapped and cold-stunned in Cape Cod Bay.\u00c2\u00a0 Based on the autopsy, the gender of this animal was determined to have been female.<\/p>\n

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

Fog Enshrouded Cruise of Wellfleet Bay<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Necropsy completed, participants headed to the\u00c2\u00a0Town Pier to board the Naviator for a two hour cruise of Wellfleet Bay.\u00c2\u00a0 The destination would be Jeremy Point and Billingsgate Shoals at the southern end of the Great Island peninsula.\u00c2\u00a0 The calm after the storm (Hurrican Ida) brought a thick fog that lay like a comforting blanket over the seascape.\u00c2\u00a0 Shorebirds, driven by gale winds to seek shelter in Wellfleet Bay, filled the harbor.\u00c2\u00a0 About a half mile west of Indian Neck, we encountered a bull pilot whale … a rare sighting from the Naviator.\u00c2\u00a0 Mass pilot whale stranding have occurred with such frequency in Wellfleet that one of its principal estuaries is named Blackfish Creek after the species.<\/p>\n

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Curious Gray and Harbor Seals Lounge on Sandbar<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

On a sandbar off Jeremy Point, we ran into a large\u00c2\u00a0gathering of gray and harbor seals, many of whom were as curious about us as we were about them.<\/p>\n

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Dennis Murley Looks Forward <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

To Next Year’s Stranding Weekend<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quarter Ton Ocean Sunfish Moved to Sanctuary The Stranding Weekend field adventure offered by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary in mid November is\u00c2\u00a0clearly a hands-on,\u00c2\u00a0participatory event.\u00c2\u00a0 As a gentle fall lingered into the Ides of November, there were concerns that the pre-planned Stranding Weekend would prove nothing more than “a walk on the beach.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[823,824,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3515"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3555,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515\/revisions\/3555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}