Hundreds of endangered sea turtles are rescued each year on Cape Cod beaches, where they become cold-stunned after being trapped by cooling waters. The annual rescue effort, involving volunteers and conservationists, has grown as strandings have increased tenfold since the early 2000s.
Record Strandings and Warming Waters
Massachusetts beaches have become a hotspot for mass sea turtle strandings, with numbers jumping from about 50 a year to nearly 500. Scientists attribute the rise partly to global heating, as the Gulf of Maine is one of the most rapidly warming water bodies in the world.
Kara Dodge, a research scientist at the New England Aquarium, compared the turtles to "snowbirds" that spend summers in Cape Cod. The peninsula's hook-shaped geography acts as a trap, preventing them from swimming south when currents turn cold.
Rescue Network in Action
Volunteers from the Massachusetts Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary patrol beaches in winter, sometimes at night, to find turtles in cold shock. The turtles are transported in banana boxes to the New England Aquarium's Sea Turtle Hospital, where staff provide emergency care.
Adam Kennedy, the hospital's director, described the facility as "the emergency room and the ICU kind of all wrapped into one." Turtles receive exams, fluids, and antibiotics, with many suffering from dehydration, pneumonia, or infections.
Rehabilitation and Release
Since the hospital can handle about 65 turtles at a time, many are sent to partner rehabilitation centers along the east coast and Gulf of Mexico. Survival rates for turtles brought in alive are about 85%. Some are released as early as midwinter, while others, like a Kemp's ridley turtle named Lucky, undergo surgery and extended care.
Lucky, one of 473 turtles found cold-stunned last November and December, was medically cleared for release on 11 August and is due to be released from Cape Cod on 18 August with a satellite tracker. The aquarium's Sea Turtle Tracker allows researchers and the public to follow migration habits.
By early August, only Lucky and five other turtles remained in the hospital, with staff working to resolve their medical issues before beach releases become too cold. The prognosis for all was looking good.
