{"id":3722,"date":"2009-12-12T12:23:57","date_gmt":"2009-12-12T17:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=3722"},"modified":"2010-01-16T09:25:54","modified_gmt":"2010-01-16T14:25:54","slug":"rescuing-tropical-sea-turtles-in-arctic-conditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=3722","title":{"rendered":"Rescuing Tropical Sea Turtles in Arctic Conditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Cold-Stunned Kemp’s Ridley Overturned in Surf <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Winds continue to blow, temperatures continue to plunge,\u00c2\u00a0and tropical sea turtles continue to be expelled from the frigid waters of Cape Cod Bay.\u00c2\u00a0 With numbers approaching 150 critically endangered turtles, beach patrols go out at each high tide in search for helpless animals that would quickly succumb to hypothermia without aggressive intervention.\u00c2\u00a0 Friday night, as the Weather Channel<\/a> charts below indicate, proved a gruesome night for tropical critters and human rescuers with temperatures on the Outermost Cape dipping into the low 20s, a powerful westerly gale raking the coastline and pounding breakers gouging beach and dunes.<\/p>\n

\"ne_curtemp_720x486\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Friday Night Temps Dipped into Low 20s on Outer Cape Cod<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"map_wnd_night1_3usne_enus_600x405\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Gale Force Winds Roar from the Northwest<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The real challenge Friday night was reaching the beach.\u00c2\u00a0 “Landings” on Cape Cod are beach access points\u00c2\u00a0that usually involve a path through foredunes, creating a canyon effect.\u00c2\u00a0 With a powerful on-shore blow, winds channel through this opening at hurricane force, scouring sand pebbles from the beach and spewing them horizontally through the “canyon.”\u00c2\u00a0 The only successful access to the beach on Friday night demanded a backwards approach, which proved a bit tricky considering pitch darkness, unbalancing gusts and sifting sands.\u00c2\u00a0 Knockdowns were neither unknown nor infrequent.<\/p>\n

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

Tropical Sea Turtle Rescued\u00c2\u00a0in Arctic Conditions<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Still, turtles would be tossed ashore with the\u00c2\u00a0night high tide and rescuers were needed to patrol miles and miles of\u00c2\u00a0beaches from Truro to Brewster no matter the conditions.\u00c2\u00a0 The video above documents the recovery of a medium sized juvenile Kemp’s ridley from the raging surf off Ryder Beach in South Truro.<\/p>\n

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

Cold-Stunned Juvenile Kemp’s Ridley<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This Kemp’s ridley had taken in a lot of water while tumbling through the surf zone.\u00c2\u00a0 The hope we feel for each rescued animal is only encouraged by the number of “dead turtles” that “return to life” after 24 hours of resting in dry dock at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Several Kemp’s marked down as DOA on Thursday snapped back to life on Friday.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

Critically Endangered Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Turtles are wonderfully resilient animals, and cold-stunned tropical sea turtles need to be resilient when trapped in near Arctic conditions of wintry Cape Cod Bay.\u00c2\u00a0 For critically endangered\u00c2\u00a0turtles like the Kemp’s ridley, every effort we make to save these juveniles pays enormous dividends toward the survival of the species; saving the species, one turtle at a time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cold-Stunned Kemp’s Ridley Overturned in Surf Winds continue to blow, temperatures continue to plunge,\u00c2\u00a0and tropical sea turtles continue to be expelled from the frigid waters of Cape Cod Bay.\u00c2\u00a0 With numbers approaching 150 critically endangered turtles, beach patrols go out at each high tide in search for helpless animals that would quickly succumb to hypothermia […]<\/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\/3722"}],"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=3722"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3740,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3722\/revisions\/3740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}