Hundreds of frozen sea turtles wash up on Cape Cod
By: Laura Goldman From Care2Lured by warming ocean temperatures, sea turtles that thrive in tropical climates are extending their stays off the New England coast in the autumn – and it’s having deadly consequences for them.
During an unusual cold snap in November with single-digit temperatures and gale-force winds, at least 219 sea turtles washed up on the shores of Cape Cod. The frozen turtles were what experts call “cold-stunned.” This occurs when chilly water below 50 degrees Fahrenheit makes the turtles, who need external heat for their bodies to function, lose their ability to swim. They end up being helplessly carried along by the wind to the shore.
On Thanksgiving day alone, 82 sea turtles – mostly critically endangered Kemp’s ridleys — were discovered on the shore. They looked like they “were flash-frozen, flippers in all weird positions like they were swimming,” Robert Prescott, director of Massachusetts Audubon Society’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, told the Cape Cod Times.
Only one of those sea turtles survived.
Since the beginning of the year, nearly 600 cold-stunned sea turtles have washed ashore at Cape Cod. It’s the second-largest number since the early 1980s, when the sanctuary began its rescue program. The final total for the year could be over 1,000.
