Saving the sea turtles

It has become an annual tradition in our household: Each fall around Thanksgiving, my sweetheart Marilyn and I take a quiet getaway to Cape Cod to hike on the beaches, bike if the weather's nice.

We explore different places to stay -- this year, a cozy bed-and breakfast called the Inn at the Oaks ( www.innattheoaks.com; 508-255-1886) in North Eastham, eat some great seafood (try the blackened tuna sashimi at Mahoney's Atlantic in Orleans) and relax for a few days before the run-up to Christmas.

This year, we gave our beach walking a purpose and focus. We became part of the sea turtle rescue program coordinated by Massachusetts Audubon's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary in South Wellflleet ( www.wellfleetbay.org ; 508-349-2615).

Endangered Kemp's Ridley, Green and Leatherback sea turtles are tropical and sub-tropical creatures. Nobody knows precisely why  they wash up on the shores of Cape Cod Bay in large numbers each fall when the weather turns cold and the wind blows from the North or Northwest.

---

This is what you are looking for: an endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle, stunned by the cold, washed up at the high tide line on a beach along Cape Cod Bay. Elizabeth Hogan, below, recovered this cold-stunned Kemp's ridley sea turtle from a Brewster beach. (Photos: Don Lewis, Cape Cod Consultants)

---

One leading theory is that young turtles drift north during the summer and then head south as the water begins to cool in the fall. But if  they get trapped in Northern bays as the water cools, they get into trouble.

The cooling water slows their metabolism, making it more difficult for them to swim. When the water reaches 50 degrees Farenheit, the cold-blooded turtles go into "cold shock" and simply drift along with wind and tide. Some, still alive but in a virtual coma, eventually wash up on the beach, where they will freeze to death if humans don't step in to help.

A dedicated network of naturalists and volunteers from the Wellfleet Sanctuary, working with the New England Aquarium ( neaq.org ) in Boston, rescues a significant percentage of these stranded turtles.

Rescued turtles are rehabilitated and then release a year later, south of Cape Cod, where they can continue their natural migration. With endangered species like these, the survival of even a few individuals can give the whole population a much-needed boost.

Saving turtles starts by finding them as soon as possible after they wash ashore. Using water temperature and wind direction as guides for where to look, searchers monitor certain beaches along Cape Cod Bay whenever cold and wind makes finding turtles likely.

The search itself requires walking along the hide tide line of a beach as soon as the water starts receding.

Since most turtles strand in cold, windy weather and especially during strong storms at night, this sometimes requires a fair amount of dedication. Then again, sometimes it doesn't.

This year, we hooked up with Dennis Murley, the Audubon naturalist who leads the program and went searching on a cool morning when there was a chance that a passing cold front had dropped the temps enough to put the turtles in jeopardy.

We set out just as the tide reached its peak, and walked a couple of miles of the beach from Duck Harbor over toward Great Island. While we were out, other volunteers were walking other beaches.

It was a wonderful walk, with a seemingly-friendly seal watching us pass, and a host of birdlife including gannets, mergansers, and eider ducks to view, seashells and ocean views to admire. You really couldn't ask for a better setting.

Fortunately, we didn't find any turtles that day, nor the next. And since nobody else was finding turtles, we didn't bother to walk the beaches with our headlamps at night. That would have been an adventure, especially in the kind of weather where turtles are most likely to need saving.

We'll be back again, probably next year. Life isn't a spectator sport. Get out and enjoy!

What to do if you find a sea turtle

If you happen to find a stranded sea turtle, your actions can make the difference between life and death for that creature, and you have only a very short time in which to make a difference.

• Do not put the turtle back in the water.
• Do not remove it from the beach.
• Call the Audubon Center at 508-349-2615. The phone is checked 24/7 during turtle stranding season. If necessary, leave a message with the specific location. Please be as specific as possible in giving directions from the nearest beach access so they can recover the turtle quickly.
• Move the turtle above the high tide line (most turtles are fairly small)
• Cover it with seaweed to insulate it from the wind
• Mark its location with a stick, buoy or other beach debris to make it easy to find.

Any turtle you find will be taken to a holding facility where it will be warmed slowly (5 degrees per day) until it is active. It will then be fed and rehabilitated so it can be released next season into warmer waters/

Even if the turtle doesn't live, your finding it will help researches gain more knowledge about the turtles, and will help save the species in the future.

Know your turtles

The turtle that strands most often on Cape Cod beaches is the Kemp's Ridley, the smallest, most endangered, and hardest to study of all the sea turtles

Leatherbacks are born in the tropics and migrate from the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, and migrate all the way north to feeding grounds near the Arctic Sea where they feed on jellyfish. Heading south in August and September, they often stop in Cape Cod.

Less common are green sea turtles and loggerheads, which only occasionally venture this far north.