Rescue Teams in Cape Cod Target 'Cold-Shocked' Sea Turtles

Thought Question: What is something in nature you'd want to help protect, and why?

Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, like other reptiles, are cold blooded creatures, meaning they must rely on their surroundings to warm themselves. In the shallow waters of New England’s Cape Cod Bay, a gathering place for the Kemp’s ridleys in the summer months, this has become a life-threatening issue for the turtles when fall sets in.

Due to climate change, Cape Cod's waters warm earlier each year. They remain warmer deeper into autumn, too. The north end of the Cape Cod Peninsula stretches 65 miles out into the Atlantic Ocean. It serves as a hook-shaped barrier. Its shape strands many of the sea turtles in the bay. Then, as the weather cools in November and December, more of those turtles have become trapped in waters soon to turn cold and frigid. They swim southward. But they cannot get out of the bay.

Thus, thousands of the sea turtles have suffered hypothermia-like conditions. This often leans to pneumonia, shock, and frostbite. Many turtles die. Each year, hundreds wash up on Cape Cod’s beaches.

This danger is why staff of New England Aquarium’s Sea Turtle Hospital have jumped in. They are rescuing as many of the turtles each year as they can. The effort began several years ago. Back then, hundreds of volunteers from the Massachusetts Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary began searching the beaches for cold-shocked turtles that could still be saved.

Rescuers transport the turtles to the hospital via car or van. Sometimes, they even use a plane for more remote locations. It’s unknown how many sea turtles have been saved through this process. But it certainly numbers in the hundreds.

“It’s an amazing network of sea turtle people,” Adam Kennedy, the hospital’s director, told The Guardian. “And we all have one focus: which is to get the turtles back to the wild.”