As icy surf whips at Cape Cod’s beaches, sea turtles should be nowhere in sight. By winter, they're normally well on their way to the Gulf of Mexico’s warmer waters. Yet every year, some very cold turtles wash ashore needing rescue.
That's always been a problem. But over the past few years, there's been a dramatic increase in the number of sea turtles stranded on the Cape.
On a windy afternoon, Rebecca Shoer and Olivia Bourque — who oversee Mass Audubon’s sea turtle rescue program — get a call from a volunteer. He’s just found a loggerhead turtle on a treacherous peninsula. To offer some protection from the wind and disguise it from birds, he’s covered the turtle in seaweed. But it’s cold, and time is running out. Bundled in snow pants, hats and hoods, Shoer and Bourque head out on a two-mile hike to reach the chestnut brown turtle. They arrive just as dusk sets in.
"The dunes are gone in a lot of spots — it's a high tide and fierce winds," Shoer shouts into the gusty air.
The 50-pound turtle’s barely alive. It has hypothermia and is "cold-stunned." Basically, the cold has induced a coma-like state. The turtle’s body is about the same temperature as the water. On the beach, the air cools it further.
"It think it was 27 when we left, and that was two hours ago. So it's easily in the 20s. Wind chill of something stupid," Shoer says.
After lugging the turtle back to the road on a wagon, they drive it a few miles down the Cape to the turtle triage center at Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, in Wellfleet.
Bob Prescott, the director, meets them. He kneels down to check the turtle’s basic body reflexes, moving the flippers and gently touching the eyes. Prescott started doing this work several decades ago. Back then, he says, they’d find maybe a dozen cold-stunned sea turtles each year. But the numbers have steadily increased. By the early 2000s, a typical year had roughly 90 strandings. And in the past few years, there have been many hundreds of sea turtles found each winter on the Cape.
"To me it said, ‘No this isn't an accident.’ Something's going on here," Prescott says
Prescott thinks two things are happening.
First, he says, the turtle population is on the rise. While some sea turtles — including ones found here — are still critically endangered, conservation efforts have been working. So, more turtles in the water equals more turtles getting stranded.
The second reason is more concerning. Something's happening to the Gulf of Maine — that's all the water off the coast of Massachusetts, along Maine and up to Canada.
“The Gulf of Maine is the warmest warming body of water on earth today. There's no more cold water barrier,” Prescott explains. “So these turtles are just — they're coming by or the wind blows them in and they just come right on in."
Between 2004 and 2013, water temperatures in the Gulf of Maine increased a remarkable 4 degrees. Prescott surmises that, as the water warms, these turtles are traveling farther and farther north. When they do try to head south, some get caught by Cape Cod. They happily swim into the bay. But by winter, those are the turtles washing ashore with hypothermia.
Slowly, Prescott and his team have learned how best to help chilly turtles. One key thing? Warm them slowly. Many have pneumonia, which can be particularly bad for a cold-stunned turtle.
"The immune system has been compromised because of the cold temperatures,” Prescott says.
When the turtle warms too fast, he says, the pneumonia activates before the immune system can wake up and fight it. But if you warm the turtles very slowly — just 5 degrees a day — and give them medication, things tend to go better.
The other key thing? Take them to Quincy, Massachusetts. In an old pipe fitting factory, the New England Aquarium has set up a sea turtle hospital. Even with multiple levels and large tanks, it's over capacity. But patients still keep coming to its door.
The day after Shoer and Bourque rescued the loggerhead turtle, it arrives in Quincy and Julika Wocial, a senior biologist, takes it in. With the motionless turtle in a crate by the door, she tries to get a heart rate.
"Charlie this is Julika. Charlie do you copy?” With urgency in her voice, Wocial radios the veterinarian. “I am not getting any heart rate on Doppler.”
Returning to the turtle, she takes its internal temperature and prepares to draw blood. "He's very critical, but I am going to try to work with him.”
The blood is dark. Even before it’s been analyzed, Wocial can tell this turtle hasn’t taken a breath in a while. So, CPR is in order. Next, it’s put on a ventilator, where it stays for about two hours beside all the other turtles in the ICU.
It's touch and go. But by the evening, things are looking hopeful.
“CPR turtle is now swimming," Wocial says in a text message, "but not out of the woods by far.”
