{"id":3663,"date":"2009-12-07T22:19:15","date_gmt":"2009-12-08T03:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=3663"},"modified":"2010-01-16T09:31:55","modified_gmt":"2010-01-16T14:31:55","slug":"roaring-winds-plunging-temps-and-astronomic-tides-yield-record-pace-of-sea-turtle-strandings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=3663","title":{"rendered":"Roaring Winds, Plunging Temps, and Astronomic Tides Yield Record Pace of Sea Turtle Strandings"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Turtle Journal\u00c2\u00a0Scours\u00c2\u00a0Dennis Beach before Sunset<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

From record high temperatures and pleasant warm breezes last week, Cape Cod snapped into winter mode this weekend.\u00c2\u00a0 An Arctic front swept through New England and roared across the bay, creating enormous breakers by Sunday afternoon with a sustained 30-knot northerly wind blowing unobstructed on the long fetch from Downeast Maine to the northern shores of Dennis and Brewster.\u00c2\u00a0 Sea turtles that had lingered too long in Cape Cod Bay were tossed ashore and spread along endless miles of wind-facing beaches.\u00c2\u00a0 Staff and volunteers of Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0searched those beaches for several hours at every high tide, daylight and nighttime, to rescue tropical sea turtles before the frigid winds turned recoverable cold-stunning into irreversible freezing.<\/p>\n

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Juvenile Kemp’s Ridley Tossed Ashore in Freezing Conditions<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

During times like these, experienced\u00c2\u00a0rescuers have learned to put\u00c2\u00a0personal and professional lives\u00c2\u00a0on hold and to suspend important decisions until punch-drunk sleep deprivation can be relieved with a few hours of uninterrupted z’s.\u00c2\u00a0 This posting attempts to convey the feel of around-the-clock turtle rescues, the unimagined bliss of finding and saving\u00c2\u00a0some of the rarest sea turtles in the world, the majestic beauty of raw nature and a bit of the comedic interlude that refreshes\u00c2\u00a0our sleep starved team as\u00c2\u00a0we pound out mile after mile after lonely mile of patrols.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

While it comes late in this posting, the short video of the 3 AM rescue of a small Kemp’s ridley from Dennis on Monday morning (see below) may give you a visceral sense of the moment of discovery when out of the impenetrable darkness a ray of hope emerges.\u00c2\u00a0 For each turtle saved, individuals scour tens of miles of windswept, wave eroded and wrack laden beaches during the worst imaginable weather conditions.<\/p>\n

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Powerful Winds, Plunging Temperature Drive Turtles Ashore<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The engines that drive turtles ashore in Cape Cod each fall\u00c2\u00a0are winds, waves and tides … with an assist\u00c2\u00a0from dropping temperatures.\u00c2\u00a0 Trapped in the bay as they migrate southward\u00c2\u00a0when cued\u00c2\u00a0by dropping ocean temperatures, juvenile Kemp’s ridleys, green sea turtles\u00c2\u00a0and loggerheads become snared in the jutting geography of Cape Cod’s giant arm.\u00c2\u00a0 Sluggish in chilling waters, they enter cold-stunned stupor at about 50\u00c2\u00b0 F and become as helpless as any other piece of flotsam and jetsam in the sea.\u00c2\u00a0 The physics of prevailing winds, wave actions and relentless tides drive turtles ashore on beaches in the opposing direction of the wind.\u00c2\u00a0 Once they are tossed onto land, the life clock starts ticking because exposed to frigid ambient temperatures and blistering winds, these tropical animals will quickly lose whatever remains of their energy and life force.\u00c2\u00a0 Unless recovered soon after stranding, they will not survive.<\/p>\n

So, the\u00c2\u00a0dangerous beauty of a windstorm\u00c2\u00a0actually saves the lives of these sea turtles, giving us access to them before hypothermia becomes irreversible.\u00c2\u00a0 The sooner in the season they strand, the higher the probability of survival.\u00c2\u00a0 The longer they are exposed to the cold elements of a harsh Cape Cod fall, the smaller the odds of recovery.<\/p>\n

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Cold-Stunned Kemp’s Ridley at Mayflower Beach<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The pace of strandings this weekend has hit a record tempo as we surpass 100 cold-stunned sea turtles for the season.\u00c2\u00a0 With gale force winds pounding the Cape, turtles came ashore on every tide, like this Kemp’s ridley tosssed upside down by the morning tide in Dennis on Sunday.<\/p>\n

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Recoverying Kemp’s Ridley from Mayflower Beach<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The video clip above\u00c2\u00a0documents\u00c2\u00a0the recovery of a\u00c2\u00a0Kemp’s ridley sea turtle\u00c2\u00a0found by a\u00c2\u00a0beachwalker at Mayflower in Dennis on Sunday.\u00c2\u00a0 The proper rescue procedure is to move the animal above the high water line so that it doesn’t get swept back out to sea, to cover the turtle with dry seaweed to prevent additional hypothermia from exposure, and to call the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary at 508-349-2615<\/strong> to report the location of the find.\u00c2\u00a0 Trained rescuers respond to the site and recover the animal for evaluation, triage and follow-on treatment.<\/p>\n

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Entertaining Intermission with Shorebird Ballet<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Walking miles of beach in sleep-starved giddiness, you often encounter natural diversions to keep your mind and eyes sharp and fixed on the mission.\u00c2\u00a0 As Turtle Journal walked the Chapin Beach leg of Dennis on Sunday afternoon, a ballet troupe of shorebirds offered an entertaining interlude with a setting sun as dramatic backdrop.<\/p>\n

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Gripping 3 AM Rescue of Endangered Kemp’s Ridley<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

With a dozen turtles arriving with each tide, the call was inevitable.\u00c2\u00a0 “On the beaches for the 2:50 AM high tide Sunday night\/Monday morning.<\/strong>“\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0One advantage to a middle of the night sea patrol is the lack of competing traffic.\u00c2\u00a0 Heck, not a single solitary human being was out and about as we drove through 6A in Dennis and along the backroads to the beach.\u00c2\u00a0 Turtle Journal\u00c2\u00a0drew\u00c2\u00a0the western edge of the search from Chapin Beach to Sea Street Beach in Dennis.<\/p>\n

The weather had worsened … considerably.\u00c2\u00a0 Temperatures dipped below freezing.\u00c2\u00a0 Storm puddles behind the dunes sported razor thin ice sheets.\u00c2\u00a0 Winds still whistled from the northwest and\u00c2\u00a0angled breakers across the shallow tidal flats onto the beach.\u00c2\u00a0 Any turtle stranded on this tide, on this night, would die before dawn unless rescued soon after beaching.<\/p>\n

As I zigzagged through the drift fencing at Mayflower Beach and\u00c2\u00a0scaled\u00c2\u00a0the wind-blown dunes\u00c2\u00a0to reach the shore, gusts still riled the bay and waves rumbled from left to right, west to east, sweeping\u00c2\u00a0seaweed and debris into piles along a\u00c2\u00a0dotted\u00c2\u00a0line called the wrack.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the spot we find most sea turtles, mixed among flotsam and jetsam\u00c2\u00a0expelled by\u00c2\u00a0an angry sea.<\/p>\n

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

Endangered Kemp’s Ridley\u00c2\u00a0Stranded in Surf Zone<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But this little Kemp’s ridley, measuring 25.7 centimeters (~ 10 inches)\u00c2\u00a0maximum straight-line carapace length, didn’t\u00c2\u00a0reach the wrack line.\u00c2\u00a0 It lay in the intertidal surf at the edge of the receding bay.\u00c2\u00a0 Even in the dark shadows of my headlamp, I could see the pinkish “pooling”\u00c2\u00a0of the skin around the ridley’s plastron (bottom side), indicating that its circulation had slowed to a crawl.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet, there were hopeful signs\u00c2\u00a0in the wet beach sand where it had just been deposited. Indentations formed where the turtle may have swept its flippers\u00c2\u00a0back and forth\u00c2\u00a0in a swimming motion.<\/p>\n

A finger touch behind the head caused a neck muscle contraction.\u00c2\u00a0 The eyelid twittered to a gentle stroke.\u00c2\u00a0 When lifted for the trip back to the rescue vehicle, the ridley began to wave its flippers enough to be considerd a lively specimen on a night of freezing beach temperatures.<\/p>\n

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Atlantic Saury (Scomberesox saurus)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Not only sea turtles become beached on nights like this.\u00c2\u00a0 An Atlantic saury (see picture above) had also been tossed into the wrack.<\/p>\n

EXTRA! EXTRA!!<\/span><\/h1>\n

Kemp’s Ridley Recovered from Woods Hole in Buzzards Bay!<\/span><\/h2>\n

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Sue Wieber Nourse Recovers Kemp’s Ridley from Gansett Beach, Woods Hole<\/strong><\/p>\n

The overwhelming percentage (99.9%) of cold-stunned sea turtles are found on beaches\u00c2\u00a0abutting Cape Cod Bay.\u00c2\u00a0 Truth be told, the vast majority come ashore from\u00c2\u00a0Barnstable in the west to Truro in the north.\u00c2\u00a0 A few strand in Provincetown, fewer still in Sandwich, and isolated turtles along the west shore of Cape Cod Bay up to Hull and Quincy.\u00c2\u00a0 You can imagine the surprise to receive a call from a\u00c2\u00a0Buzzards Bay\u00c2\u00a0beachwalker, relayed through MBL, that a possible green sea turtle had been found on private Gansett Beach in Woods Hole.<\/p>\n

The Turtle Journal team took the call and drove to Woods Hole for the snipe hunt.\u00c2\u00a0 After a few false starts, we found the beach and a cold-stunned Kemp’s ridley sea turtle at the edge of the wrack line.\u00c2\u00a0 Sue Wieber Nourse showed this rare turtle to a young woman named Ursula (and her grandmother Ellie Armstrong) whom we encountered as we searched for the turtle.<\/p>\n

Yes, this turtle strands with lots of questions for researchers, not the least of which might be how the heck did it get here.\u00c2\u00a0 Did it get trapped in Cape Cod Bay and find its way through the canal into Buzzards Bay?\u00c2\u00a0 Did it actually get trapped north of Martha’s Vineyard, succumb to cold-stunned stupor and then get beached in this weekend’s blow?<\/p>\n

Who Us Worry?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Any sensible rescuer would be a bit worried by the number and the tempo of the sea turtle strandings this fall.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet, what worries Turtle Journal most is that the 100+ turtles we have recovered to date are predominately smaller ridleys.\u00c2\u00a0 These stranding seasons have a regular, repeatable\u00c2\u00a0pattern and rhythm; small first, medium next and large last.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re still at the “small first” stage and already more than 100 turtles!\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yikes, we hope no one has plans for the forthcoming holidays.\u00c2\u00a0 Beaches to walk, turtles to save!\u00c2\u00a0 What better present to unwrap than a seaweed encased tropical sea turtle on a snow and ice covered Cape Cod beach in the midst of an ocean effect blizzard.\u00c2\u00a0 Can it possibly get any better than saving the world one cold-stunned sea turtle at a time?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Turtle Journal\u00c2\u00a0Scours\u00c2\u00a0Dennis Beach before Sunset From record high temperatures and pleasant warm breezes last week, Cape Cod snapped into winter mode this weekend.\u00c2\u00a0 An Arctic front swept through New England and roared across the bay, creating enormous breakers by Sunday afternoon with a sustained 30-knot northerly wind blowing unobstructed on the long fetch from Downeast […]<\/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\/3663"}],"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=3663"}],"version-history":[{"count":44,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3885,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3663\/revisions\/3885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}