November is the beginning of the sea turtle stranding season on Cape Cod, and this weekend nine critically endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtles washed up on Outer Cape beaches, almost all in Eastham. The 4-9-pound black-shelled turtles were rescued by the dedicated staff and volunteers from the Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary at Wellfleet Bay. The turtles were then transported to the New England’s Aquarium’s sea turtle hospital in Quincy, MA.

See more pictures of these first turtles to arrive at the sea turtle hospital on the Rescue Blog!

An endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle covered in algae is evaluated at in-take at the New England Aquarium’s sea turtle hospital in Quincy, MA. The turtle stranded in Eastham on Cape Cod over the weekend due to prolonged hypothermia.

Most of the lethargic turtles were covered with accumulated algae from lack of activity due to low body temperatures in the mid-50’s. Since sea turtle are reptiles and cold-blooded, they assume the water temperature around them. Their preferred body temperature is in the 70’s, and Aquarium biologists and veterinarians will slowly re-warm the turtles about 5 degrees per day over the next three days.

Once re-warmed, many of the turtles will have other medical problems due to the slow chilling and minimal eating over the last several weeks. Malnutrition, pneumonia, blood disorders and orthopedic issues are all common problems that require prolonged rehab of anywhere from 3 to 10 months. 85 to 90% of the live rescued turtle survive and are released back into the wild, usually in the warm waters off of Florida or Georgia over the winter.

A slowly re-warming sea turtle that stranded on Cape Cod over the weekend due to hypothermia gets a little physical therapy with a supervised swim at New England Aquarium’s sea turtle hospital in Quincy.

Kemp’s ridleys are the most endangered sea turtle in the world. As juveniles, they migrate annually to the waters off of Cape Cod to feed on crabs. Many of the young animals end up in Cape Cod Bay on the north side of this huge, backward L shaped peninsula. Many of the young animals are unable to figure out the tricky navigation out of the bay and slowly become hypothermic as sea temperatures slowly decline during the autumn. Wave activity churned up by northwest winds washes the inert turtles ashore.

In an average year, 90 to 100 sea turtles of three different species will strand on Cape Cod and the Islands due to cold stunning. The record was 242 in 2012. So far, this year 11 Kemp’s ridleys have stranded with the first arriving from Martha’s Vineyard November 3. The season could last until mid-December depending on weather.

Over 20 years, the New England Aquarium and Mass Audubon at Wellfleet Bay have rescued, rehabilitated and released more than 1000 endangered and threatened sea turtles.

If someone finds a turtle, please call Mass Audubon at Wellfleet Bay at 508-349-2615.

Volunteers serve beyond the main Aquarium on Central Wharf.  Read Kat DeStefano’s account of her inspiring experience volunteering at our Quincy facility during the record breaking 2012 turtle stranding season:

There is no way I can do the past stranding season justice in words, but I'll try. I'm blessed with having a job where I make my own hours. From December 1 to February 1 I feel like I spent so many evenings working into the wee hours of the morning playing catch up so I could spend most of my days at rescue and rehab—and I couldn't have been happier!

Kat hefting one of the record number of large loggerhead sea turtles into a rehab pool

Every morning that I was able to come in the energy was almost palpable, new faces from all departments, outside organizations, all with this amazing energy. And the staff, as exhausted as they must have been, always starting the day off with big smiles and "Ok, let's do this!" handling every challenge with grace and even a sense of humor, above all making sure that the volunteers were well cared for as well as the turtles.

All these empty banana boxes arrived full of turtles!

There were dozens of banana boxes filled with new turtle patients every morning and evening, and the patients got larger and larger as December came to a close. There were so many huge loggerhead turtles that came through the doors that there was absolutely no room for! But the staff kept finding room, finding other facilities to help us out, rearranging pools, and ultimately creating "Loggerland" where we put the dozens of giant turtles in the 24 foot pool together and staff and volunteers would don drysuits and walk around in the pool trying to coax these gentle giants to eat.

One of the large loggerhead patients

A loggerhead swims in a rehabilitation pool

I think my favorite case was #206 though. When you work with the turtles there is always that one case that you feel like you really had an impact on, or had an impact on you as it more often seems. #206 was it for me. She came in as one of the last Kemp's late in the season, lethargic, cold, on a day that I had swim room duty. When the turtles come in we take initial vitals—heart rate, respiration rate, temperature, and blood samples—and then they immediately go to the swim room to get them moving, so they can "remember that they are turtles" as the staff says. I remember supporting #206 in the 55 degree water with my hand until it went numb, moving her flippers, getting her stimulated, and then she started swimming very very slowly. I watched her for her ten-minute initial swim and then took her out for a rest.

#206 was a Kemp's ridley sea turtle like this

While waiting for her second swim, I noticed she had not taken a breath in her box in a while and alerted Adam. We moved her into the clinic and tried to encourage her to breathe but something wasn't right. Adam administered some medications to stimulate breathing and I took her back out to the pool to get her moving again. She was so limp and not very responsive, her flippers just dangling below her in the water, my palm under her carapace supporting her, her head resting on my wrist. It seemed like ages before she took a breath and started to move on her own again, and even then it seemed something was a little off. I'd reach in the cold pool as she swam around slowly and would have to lift her head for her and it was like she suddenly remembered and she'd take a breath. I must have spent hours watching that turtle over the next few days, making her my own personal ward, really wanting this one to pull through.

It was touch and go with that turtle for a long time, there was nothing that the staff could find wrong with her despite various diagnostics, but she wouldn't eat for the longest time which is often how some underlying illnesses manifest. We had to tube feed her for weeks, which requires extra handling and can irritate the throat so it isn't ideal, and as we watched some of our other patients go downhill I kept thinking "No, not that one. She's going to make it." It's so hard not to get attached to those little shelled patients, even though we know that we can't save all of them. But #206, now she's one of the healthiest turtles in the facility, she just can't get enough squid heads, and I'm so glad I was able to be a part of her recovery.

Learn more on the Marine Animal Rescue Team Blog!

• See pictures and read about last year's the record sea turtle stranding season.
• Here's the perspective of another volunteer on the ground during the thick of the stranding season. 
• Volunteers helped released a pair of now-healthy turtles from Martha's Vineyard last week.
• Volunteers were also on hand for a road trip release special down to Long Island.

This is a media release cross-posted from the Aquarium's Rescue Blog. Find out how you can support the Aquarium and their efforts to rescue and protect endangered animals here.

With nearly 150 sea turtles rescued from Cape Cod beaches over the past four weeks due to hypothermia, the New England Aquarium’s sea turtle hospital is over capacity, and more critically ill turtles are arriving every day.


Head Aquarium veterinarian Charles Innis loads loggerheads for transport to the airport with a volunteer marine animal rescuer from New York.

Recently, the Aquarium has been transferring re-warmed and stable sea turtles to other marine animal rescue facilities all over the east Coast. Monday, four large loggerhead sea turtles flew from Massachusetts to a sea turtle hospital in southern Georgia courtesy of Polar Beverages of Worcester, MA. The Crowley family, owners of Polar and longtime supporters of the Aquarium, arranged for the sea turtle express.


Aquarium rescue biologist Adam Kennedy loaded the recovering cold-stunned loggerhead sea turtle on to the private plane, CREDIT: New England Aquarium

New England Aquarium rescue biologists loaded the recovering cold-stunned loggerhead sea turtle on to a private plane owned by Polar Beverages of Worcester, Mass. for transport to a sea turtle hospital in Georgia. The near record number of stranded hypothermic sea turtles has been complicated by the record number of much larger loggerhead sea turtles that are stranding.


Nancy Dell'Aquila, Elizabeth Crowley, Julie Corwley and David Crowley check out a rescued, 80-pound loggerhead sea turtle scheduled to be flown from Worcester Airport to southern Georgia. CREDIT: New England Aquarium

Cold Weather Turns up First Hypothermic Sea Turtles of the Season on Cape Cod

Beyond the wet snow, another sure sign of oncoming winter is the beginning of the sea turtle stranding season on Cape Cod each November and December. The first two hypothermic sea turtles of the season have arrived at the New England Aquarium’s Animal Care Center in Quincy, with four more expected this afternoon. Beach walkers with the Mass Audubon Sanctuary at Wellfleet Bay first found stranded endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtles Tuesday at Crow’s Pasture Beach in Dennis and another in Brewster. The wave activity from today’s storm washed ashore additional sea turtles that had been floating due to low body temperatures. Hardy beach walkers braved the nasty weather in search of the endangered reptiles and found three more young Kemp’s ridleys and a loggerhead that is estimated to weigh 50 pounds. (Learn the difference between Kemp's ridley and green sea turtles and how they're cared for in this webcast.)


The first two sea turtle patients. Each turtle will be receiving some physical therapy in the form of a supervised swim as seen in the images attached.

These two, juvenile Kemp’s ridley sea turtles are being slowly re-warmed about five degrees per day at the New England Aquarium’s Animal Care Center in Quincy. The 3 and 5 pound sea turtles were found in Dennis and Brewster with body temperatures of 55.7 and 58.6, close to the water temperature of eastern Cape Cod Bay. Humans would be long dead with that low a body temperature, but sea turtles are cold-blooded and with medical intervention can even survive body temperatures in the low 40’s. The black shelled turtles will have their body temperatures increased just five degrees per day for four days until their body temperatures are in the mid-70’s. This slow re-warming strategy helps the turtles fight off infections.


Samantha MacEwan  a volunteer with the New England Aquarium guides the short swim of a hypothermic sea turtles that had stranded just a day before.

Kemp’s ridley sea turtles are the most endangered sea turtle in the world, and each summer hundreds of them migrate to the Cape to feed on crabs. However, each autumn, anywhere from 25 to 200 of these sea turtles will fail to migrate back south due to the difficulty of navigating out of Cape Cod Bay, which has land on three sides except to the north.

For two decades the Mass Audubon Sanctuary at Wellfleet Bay has been rescuing these turtles on Cape Cod Bay and bringing them to the Aquarium for months long treatment and eventual release in warmer waters down south. (Here's a great video of a sea turtle release.) This partnership has resulted in the release of nearly one thousand of the world’s most endangered sea turtles in a population that numbers in just the low tens of thousands. This program has made a tangible difference in the recovery of the population of the world’s most endangered sea turtle.

Dedicated Mass Audubon volunteers and staff are walking Cape Cod beaches Thursday morning searching for sea turtles that may strand with the significant wave activity caused by the Nor’easter. More turtles are expected.

Additional sea turtle rescue reading
To get an idea of the work ahead during the cold-stun season, look back on the sea turtle posts from 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008. Learn how rescued sea turtles are treated with lasers. Check out these awesome pictures of a sea turtle release. Did you know other turtles take private airplanes to warmer climates? See how we make the turtles comfy while they're in rehab, how and what they eat and how they get their names.

Here is how local news covered the first cold-stun turtle arrivals this year:
The Patriot Ledger
WBZ Channel 4

QUINCY, Mass. In the middle of Sunday’s historic October N’oreaster, a beach walker on Martha’s Vineyard found a cold-stunned Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, the most endangered sea turtle species in the world. The 5-pound juvenile, with a black and green shell and a serrated edge, was found just before noon near a tidal pond in Edgartown.


The turtle had an in-take temperature of 52.5 degrees Fahrenheit. 

The turtle was taken off island immediately and brought to the Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary at Wellfleet Bay, which late each autumn acts as the frontline center for gathering hypothermic sea turtles from around Cape Cod and the islands. This annual event occurs each November and lasts through December. Last year more than 120 endangered and threatened sea turtles were brought to the New England Aquarium’s new Marine Animal Care Center in Quincy.

Despite the exceptional stormy weather, this turtle was right on time. Aquarium staff often comment that you can set your ancient timepiece within a couple days of November 1 with the arrival of the first cold stunned turtles. This little guy officially stranded October 30 and was brought to the Aquarium’s off-site, state of the art rescue facility on Halloween, October 31. The turtle had an intake temperature of 52.5 degrees Fahrenheit – a true zombie-like state! Sea turtles are reptiles, which makes them cold-blooded and tough. Unlike warm-blooded animals, they do not need to maintain a constant body temperature. Cold-blooded animals will assume the environmental temperature around them, or in this case the ocean temperature. The water off the Vineyard likely took a significant rapid downturn with the storm turning the water over quickly and cooling it.


Volunteer Carrie Thistle is supervising the Kemp’s ridley during a short swim in a baby pool swim that acts as progressive physical therapy. 

This turtle should have begun migrating south in September, but something kept it from doing so. Most often, young cold-stunned sea turtles cannot figure the difficult navigation to get out of Cape Cod Bay, which is bounded on three sides by land. But this turtle was found on the Vineyard, which is on the swim route south. In their initial physical work-up, Aquarium veterinarians and biologists found that the turtle might have had some underlying medical issues. It was moderately thin and had lameness in its right front flipper from an apparent old orthopedic injury in the elbow there.

The turtle will be slowly re-warmed a few degrees each day until its body temperature is in the low 70s. Beyond life-threatening hypothermia, nearly all of the sea turtles that come in also suffer from dehydration, malnutrition and metabolic problems. About half of these cold-stunned creatures will also have pneumonia. Orthopedic problems and infections are also common. Rehab will take anywhere from a few to 10 months. Once a turtle is healthy, it will be transported for release. In late winter, the warm water is in Florida or Georgia. In August, the release site can be in the waters south of Massachusetts.

Over the last 20 years, the New England Aquarium has rehabilitated and released over 800 Kemp’s ridleys. There are only a few tens of thousands of this species alive today. The Aquarium funds the great bulk of this significant expense through its own monies and private donations.

The prognosis for this animal is guarded but optimistic. Once Aquarium staff are confident in its recovery, they will give it a name. Each year, rescue biologists choose a theme from which to choose names. In the recent past, constellations and national parks have been among the themes. This year, it is superheroes and villains.

Follow the rescue effort all month on the Aquarium's Rescue Blog.