© New England AquariumJuvenile Kemp's ridley sea turtle, with lacerated front flipper and fractured shell, being evaluated at the New England Aquarium's sea turtle hospital in Quincy, Massachusetts.
A mystery is unfolding on the beaches of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Hundreds of endangered sea turtles have been washing up on the shore, sick and stunned by the cold ocean water. Biologists and volunteers are mounting an
unprecedented rescue response to save as many turtles as possible before it's too late.Most of the turtles are juvenile Kemp's ridleys (
Lepidochelys kempii) measuring less than a foot long. They are being trapped on their southbound fall migration to warmer climes by the arm of the cape, which protrudes into the Atlantic Ocean. Many wash up not only
incapacitated by the cold, but also with life-threatening conditions like dehydration, pneumonia, infections, or off-kilter blood chemistry. Their skin is often discolored, and early on many were overgrown with algae.
"They're terrible looking" when they first wash up, says Bob Prescott, director of the conservation group Mass Audubon's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary in South Wellfleet, Massachusetts, who is coordinating the recovery of stranded turtles from the beaches. Fortunately, they respond well to treatment. His crews of volunteers and staff members have picked up more than 1070 turtles so far, about 20% of them already dead. That's far above the average of 200 turtles that have washed up each fall for the past decade. The number of arrivals has declined, Prescott says, but it is still higher than normal and won't likely reach zero until the end of the year, when the annual cold-stun season comes to a close. With water temperatures dropping, more of the turtles are showing up dead, and bigger species that can withstand the cold longer, like loggerheads (
Caretta caretta), are starting to wash up.
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