A group of students found a cold-stunned juvenile green sea turtle on First Encounter Beach, in Eastham, last Thursday. The class called Mass Audubon’s hotline and put the first turtle rescue of the season in motion.
“This is actually still early,” said Mass Audubon Cape Cod science coordinator Mark Faherty. “The bay is still above 50 degrees. The usual threshold for when cold-stunned gets started is when the Cape Cod Bay gets below 50 degrees. And then they really start to lose the ability to swim around.”
However, Faherty said it isn’t surprising that the first cold-stunned turtle of the fall is a green sea turtle.
“Green sea turtles seem a little more delicate than the other species,” he said. “They often strand early in the season.”
Four species of threatened or endangered sea turtles travel north to Cape Cod Bay or the Gulf of Maine in the summer and return to subtropical and tropical waters in the fall. Those include Kemp’s ridley – the smallest and most endangered species – loggerhead, green, and leatherback sea turtles.
Faherty explained young sea turtles get caught up in Cape Cod Bay when trying to swim south for the winter. And with the Gulf of Maine warming at a rapid rate, he said more turtles appear to be traveling north of Cape Cod.
“More of these turtles seem to be making it further north,” he said. “And then, when they try to go south, they get trapped in Cape Cod Bay – the bare and bended arm of the Cape sticking out – and it sort of entraps them.”
Cold-stunned turtles can appear lifeless. If you find a turtle on the beach, Faherty said to move it to safety.
“We don’t want these turtles back in the water,” he explained. “And so, get them a good ways above the high tide line and then you cover them in wrack and that stabilizes their temperature, it gets them out of the wind. And then you mark it in some obvious way – a big arrow, a buoy. You know, there’s usually some beach trash around.”
Next, he said to call the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary hotline at 508-349-2615, Option 2, and await further instructions.
Faherty says the stranding season can stretch from mid-November into January.
