{"id":4535,"date":"2000-11-25T17:05:45","date_gmt":"2000-11-25T22:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=4535"},"modified":"2010-03-02T17:14:10","modified_gmt":"2010-03-02T22:14:10","slug":"dark-night-%e2%80%94-25-november-2000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=4535","title":{"rendered":"Dark Night \u00e2\u20ac\u201d 25 November 2000"},"content":{"rendered":"

While strong winds and high tides drive cold-stunned sea turtles onto November beaches, perting our attention to these visitors, exotic and tropical, we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t forget Cape Cod Bay\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s resident turtles \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the exquisite, yet threatened, diamondback terrapins.\u00c2\u00a0 And while most right-thinking terrapins have burrowed under the ooze for seven months of well-earned brumation, their habitat warrants constant inspection to ensure it remains hazard free and to collect the remains of turtles that may have succumbed to some unfortunate circumstance this fall.\u00c2\u00a0 Luckily, the sea turtle patrols demand high tides and the salt marsh sweeps need low tides.<\/p>\n

\"11-25-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Full Moon on November 25th<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

One disadvantage of a new moon cycle in late November at the northern end of the universe is trying to find a usable conjunction of low tide and sunlight.\u00c2\u00a0 Today, for instance, the morning low comes two and a half hours before sunrise, and the evening low falls a half hour after sunset.\u00c2\u00a0 I chose evening.\u00c2\u00a0 On the plus side, though, this latest string of frigid days has coated the muddy muck with a thin layer of ice, allowing deeper penetration into the marsh.\u00c2\u00a0 That is, as long as you engage in something akin to a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153chicken walk,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d placing each boot gingerly, yet squarely on the ground ahead, spreading your weight as evenly as possible, and quickly moving on before you break through the wafer crunch and sink into quick mud.\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps we should trade-in our boots for chicken feet or snow shoes.<\/p>\n

Peering through the murky darkness, I spotted a dead female terrapin lying plastron-up at the edge of the main marsh creek south of Indian Neck\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Fox Island.\u00c2\u00a0 A quick flashlight check of her marginals showed she had been captured and marked previously: #388.\u00c2\u00a0 Her history would have to wait until I could search the database back home.<\/p>\n

\"11-25-2<\/a><\/p>\n

Dead Female Terrapin 388 in Fox Island WMA<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Terrapin 388 had first been observed on 12 July 1995 as she came ashore on Lieutenant Island (across the channel from the Indian Neck marsh where she now lay dead) to nest on a dirt road by Turtle Pass.\u00c2\u00a0 At the time she was 16.0 centimeters carapace length and 680 grams weight, both of which indicate that this July afternoon a half decade ago marked her first year of sexual maturity and her first nesting season.\u00c2\u00a0 Since then, she had increased about a centimeter in all dimensions, a normal growth pattern for mature Wellfleet terrapins.\u00c2\u00a0 And she died at the height of her productive years.<\/p>\n

\"11-25-5<\/a><\/p>\n

Carapace and Plastron of Dead Terrapin 388<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Her body was mostly decomposed, yet her shell showed no signs of predation or injury.\u00c2\u00a0 The only marks she sported were some mating scratches on her 5th (rear) vertebral.\u00c2\u00a0 Unfortunately, her remains bring us no closer to definitively establishing the cause of death for the 23 terrapin carcasses we recovered so far this fall from the Fox Island Wildlife Management area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While strong winds and high tides drive cold-stunned sea turtles onto November beaches, perting our attention to these visitors, exotic and tropical, we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t forget Cape Cod Bay\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s resident turtles \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the exquisite, yet threatened, diamondback terrapins.\u00c2\u00a0 And while most right-thinking terrapins have burrowed under the ooze for seven months of well-earned brumation, their habitat […]<\/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\/4535"}],"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=4535"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4543,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4535\/revisions\/4543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}