Ocean conservationists are urging mariners to watch out for sea turtles this summer.
Four species can be found in waters off the coast of Cape Cod and the islands: the leatherback, loggerhead, Kemp’s ridley, and green sea turtle. All are protected under the Endangered Species Act.
“We urge boaters to not go on autopilot and to assign someone looking ahead of the vessel,” said Karen Dourdeville, sea turtle research coordinator for Mass Audubon. “It makes an interesting trip for people because you see things and most importantly you avoid hitting [turtles].”
Vessel strikes are typically fatal to sea turtles, said Adam Kennedy, director of Rescue and Rehabilitation at the New England Aquarium.
“There's that possibility of those animals being hit by boats or the propellers,” he said.
If boaters do find a sea turtle that’s been hit by a boat or entangled in any kind of rope or fishing gear, they should contact the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown. The number to call is 800-900-3622.
“They are very fast at dispatching either their own boat or different trained vessels that they have,” Dourdeville said. “For many of these turtles … when they get entangled, if they're close enough to the surface to keep breathing, they can be successfully released and live.”
If a sea turtle is spotted on the beach, Kennedy added, it should be called in.
“There's no reason for a healthy sea turtle to actually be out on a beach up in Massachusetts,” Kennedy said. “We have no nesting beaches up here. And the age class we see here are juveniles, so they wouldn’t be nesting anyway.”
In fact, Dourdeville advised mariners to report all turtle sightings — entangled, stranded or not — to seaturtlesightings.org or 888-732-8878 to help researchers understand where and when they’re spending time in certain areas.
While many sea turtles head south for the winter, dozens of sightings are reported in local waters every summer. At six to eight feet long, Dourdeville said, leatherbacks are often the easiest to spot.
“We get descriptions from boaters of, ‘Oh, it looks like the top of a Volkswagen Beetle or an upside-down dinghy in the water,’” she said. “And often these leatherbacks, especially on calm days, will bask at the surface and then they'll put their head up. And the head is huge. People have described it as like looking like an algae-covered lobster buoy, about the size of a soccer ball.”
Loggerheads, also large sea turtles, can be identified by their color. Typically, they’re brown with yellow or orange spots, especially around the head and flippers.
“So as a boater is cruising along, if you see patches of brown seaweed, you want to look carefully and not just head right through them,” Dourdeville said. “You want to make sure it's not a basking loggerhead.”
Kemp’s ridley and juvenile green sea turtles, however, can be harder to spot because they’re roughly the size of a dinner plate.
"The last two summers have been light in terms of leatherbacks in Nantucket Sound, Vineyard Sound, Buzzards Bay and Cape Cod Bay. The last about five or six years, they've been shifting later. So we don't really expect a lot of calls before July," she said.
"But we don't know what this summer's going to bring in."
