Each fall, typically by late October, Kemp's ridleys and other sea turtles start wasching up on the 50-mile-long shoreline along Cape Cod Bay between Sandy Neck and Provincetown. The turtles, almost all juveniles, are thought to follow warm summer currents north to Maine or beyond; then, as fall approaches, they head south before inadvertently swimming into the bay formed by the great crooked cape. As the water temperature drops, so does the coldblooded animal's body temperature, until the turtle sinks into a deep torpor, too weak to find its way out of the bay. Turtles do occasionally wash up on other beaches along the East Coast, but only on Cape cod are subtantial numbers found every year.
When people at the aquarium began treaating cold-stunned sea turtles extensively, in the mid-1990s, little was known about hypothermia in the animals. Through trial and error and the testing of various medications, they have figured out how to save about 80 percent of the turtles brought into the aquarium.
The aquarium needed to make room for new arrivals, so it shipped out the turtles that were strong enough to travel. voyageurs and 16 other survivors were sent to the University of New England in Maine. Three went to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, four to the Woods Hole Aquarium in Falmouth, Massachusetts, and three to the Riverhead Foundation on Long Island. the rest, 33 Kemp's ridleys and the three greens, stayed in Boston.
Last summer, for the first time, a turtle rescued from Cape Cod Bay and tagged at the New England Aquarium was spotted nesting on a beach on Padre Island in Texas. Adam Kennedy, an aquarium biologist, says the rescue team got word of the nest at the beginning of this year's stranding season. The news made it easier to gear up for the coming days of pressure-filled work. "It's just really exciting," he said. "That's what we are here for."
What do you think we can do to help other endangered species in Peru?
