Over more than a half-century of observing Cape Cod’s Outer Beach, I have seen many things thrown up by or coming out of the surf: seals, seabirds, jellyfish, a dead humpback whale, even, once, a live deer. But the other day, at Wellfleet’s Newcomb Hollow Beach, I encountered something I had never seen before, not just on the beach, but anywhere.
It was a little after 6 p.m., which I regard as the best time of day to be on the ocean beach in late summer. The crowds have thinned out; the shadow of the cliffs has thrown a cooling canopy of shade over the upper beach, and the remaining beach goers have begun to gather in quiet groups around beach fires and evening meals. I was content simply to sit at the base of the lifeguard tower and watch the surf roll in.
But my attention was drawn to a group of pre-adolescent girls and boys gathered on the lower beach. They were excited, gesticulating and shouting at something I could not see from where I sat, so I got up and walked over to where they had gathered. When I did, I came upon a most extraordinary and improbable scene: crawling up from the lower beach, as if coming up out of the surf, was a small but highly decorated turtle. It was perhaps a foot in length and its shell was of an extraordinary design: the scutes, or scales protruded from its shell-like piles of bright gold coins, separated by deep black furrows. The gaggle of pre-teens who were following the turtle were excited and shouting, though, I was pleased to see, not harassing it or attempting to pick it up.
But I was puzzled by the creature’s presence on the beach. It didn’t look like any of our native marine turtles. I wondered if, given the recent warming of the oceans, this could possibly be a more southern, exotic species of turtle - perhaps one of a number of marine species who are gradually extending their range north on the wave of warming seas. Its highly decorative shell made me think of Botticelli’s famous Renaissance painting, “The Birth of Venus,” which depicts the goddess of love emerging from the sea, borne upon a giant scallop shell.
But the turtle, I soon learned, was not emerging from the surf, but escaping from it. A middle-aged woman who was chaperoning kids, told me that the turtle was an African Land Tortoise, a native of Eastern and Southern Africa. She and her husband had acquired the tortoise about six years ago from a licensed exotic “pet” dealer. Its name, she said, was Ellery. They had been coming to Wellfleet for over thirty years. This was the first time they had brought Ellery with them and were curious about what he would think of the beach.
“They live on dry savannahs,” the woman said, and so they thought the beach might feel like home. But Ellery was not fooled. He was obviously making a beeline to the parking lot, power-crawling his way up the beach at a lightning pace of 1 km/hour.
I was tempted to pose some questions about the environmental ethics of keeping exotic animals as pets, but I stifled the impulse. I was mostly grateful to Ellery’ owners for providing me with unexpected evidence that, after more than fifty years, the sea can still throw up remarkable surprises.
