Changing Seas Bring 'Turtle Stranding Season' to Cape Cod - The Union Journal

Changing Seas Bring 'Turtle Stranding Season' to Cape Cod - The Union Journal


Changing Seas Bring 'Turtle Stranding Season' to Cape Cod - The Union Journal

Posted: 19 Dec 2019 09:29 AM PST

Stable turtles, however, are sent to aquariums across the Atlantic Seaboard, because the hospital was not designed to handle the current volume of turtles. The turtles often travel by private plane, courtesy of a network of volunteer pilots organized by a nonprofit group called Turtles Fly Too. "Shortening the transition time reduces stress on the turtles and improves outcomes," Mr. LaCasse said.

Cold-stunning is not the only threat facing Kemp's ridleys. Sex determination in sea turtles depends on temperatures, "so with the shifting climate toward warming temperatures, in theory you could have a turtle population that's increasingly female and that presents obvious problems over time," Dr. Steen said.

Rising tides can also affect sea turtle nesting sites, including the Kemp's ridley nesting sites along the Gulf of Mexico, harming eggs. And, there's the question of how humans respond to the effects of climate change. If there is a retreat from the ocean's edge, allowing the dune ecosystem sea turtles need to lay their eggs to persist, there's hope. But building sea walls to protect buildings near the shore would cut the turtles off from the beach further endangering them.

It's too soon to tell how 112 will fare. Eleven days after being rescued it was transferred to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, which meant that it was stable enough to travel — a positive sign. It has since been renamed Stilton (this year's theme for names for the rescued turtles, voted on by volunteers, was cheese). If it is rehabilitated, it will be taken to a beach with suitable ocean temperatures and released back into the wild.

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