Turtles Gone Wild

Wareham Free Library to host ‘Turtles Gone Wild’ May 3rd

WAREHAM —
Through the magic of digital media, Don Lewis and Sue Wieber Nourse - the Turtle Journal Team - will transform the Wareham Free Library into a reptilian paradise, with the presentation of “Turtles Gone Wild” on May 3 at 6:30 p.m., so kids from 5 to 105 can experience firsthand the hair-raising excitement of adventure and discovery.
They say participants will cast off the ordinary world of bricks and mortar, climb inside a dazzling sound and light show, and unleash their inner explorer.
The audience can watch as turtles wake from winter slumber, bask in bright spring sunshine and turn thoughts to creating the next generation of reptiles.
“You’ll hide in camouflage to observe female turtles trek across impossible obstacles to reach nesting sites and deposit egg clutches representing the future of threatened turtles on the SouthCoast. You’ll fast-forward as hatchlings emerge from the sand to take their first breath as they scramble to safety. You’ll uncover secrets about what makes these shelled critters such wild and wonderful telltale species of our natural world.  As turtle populations tumble, so goes the quality of life around us. As turtles prosper, so does the richness of our own world, too.
“Along our ocean coast, you’ll come face to face with five species of sea turtles that frequent Massachusetts waters. You’ll rescue a half-ton leviathan, a massive female leatherback, entangled in buoy lines and fighting for her life. You’ll patrol storm tossed beaches to rescue hundreds of the most endangered sea turtles in the world.”
Lewis serves as the executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Conservation Districts.  Also known as “The Turtle Guy,” his research and rescue exploits have been featured on National Geographic TV and his work has been profiled in books on global animal rescue, endangered wildlife management and habitat preservation.
 Nourse, research scientist and master educator, is CEO of Cape Cod Consultants, an environmental solutions company specializing in wildlife management and critical habitat assessments that protect nature while expeditiously enabling client objectives. An intrepid adventurer, she led underwater research projects from the Canaries through the Caribbean Sea to the Hawaiian Islands, and from the Florida Keys through the Bahamas to Buzzards Bay, Cape Cod and the Gulf of Maine.
Their original nature stories and professional wildlife photography have appeared in newspapers, magazines and broadcast media locally, across the nation and around the globe. They document the nature of coastal Massachusetts on their website, Turtle Journal (www.turtlejournal.com), and they share real-time adventures directly from the wild on Twitter (www.twitter.com/turtlejournal).



Source: Wareham Free Library to host ‘Turtles Gone Wild’ May 3 - Wareham, MA - Wicked Local Wareham http://www.wickedlocal.com/wareham/news/education/x596784724/Wareham-Free-Library-to-host-Turtles-Gone-Wild-May-3#ixzz1tH1J7z3D

Turtle Crossings

About Town: Signs of the Times

Turtle Crossing signs installed around town, Community Gardens in full swing.


Concord, Massachusetts | April 24, 2012

The town's highway department and staff and students at Thoreau School organized signage be posted to protect Blanding's turtles.Credit MaureenC.Belt

Once again Concord raises the bar in terms of conservation. A few weeks ago, the Concord Public Works Highway Division, in collaboration with the staff and kids at Thoreau School, placed signs warning motorists to slow down.

And what better to symbolize “slow” than an image of a turtle. Four
Turtle Crossing Signs were installed around town to protect Blanding’s turtles who may be negligent about looking both ways before crossing streets to seek out soul mates. It is mating season for the species, which is considered nearly endangered in Massachusetts, as their habitats become infringed upon and predators destroy their nesting sites.

The turtles mate through May and begin nesting in June. The new signs will be located on Monsen Road, the Peter Spring and Cranefield Road intersection, the intersection of Butternut Circle and Mallard Drive, - where this photo was taken - and Minuteman Drive. Congratulations to the Thoreau School and our town government for protecting the Blanding’s Turtle!

Field Hands

Last week I noticed the Community Gardens are in full swing again. Plots are being hoed, seeds planted and compost bins are dotting the landscape across from the courthouse on Walden Street. Pretty soon I’ll be posting pictures of the glorious sunflowers that will bloom here at the Hugh Cargill Community Gardens. Not bad for a piece of land that once boasted the Poor House. Best of luck to all the gardeners.

That’s it for now, so ‘til Tuesday …

Don’t forget Stefanie’s column on Thursday!

Do you have something you would like to share? Contact me at mcb23@comcast.net or Stefanie at stefanieac@comcast.net and we will be happy to help you spread the good news. And follow us on Twitter: Stefanie is @stefanie3131 and I am @cosmo1162.


Source: ConcordPatch

Three outbreaks, three Salmonella strains, all linked to small turtles: CDC Continue reading on Examiner.com Three outbreaks, three Salmonella strain

Pet turtles have long been recognized as a major source of human Salmonella infection. Turtles are usually healthy carriers of Salmonella that shed the organism on an irregular basis in their feces.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on Friday an investigation of three multistate Salmonella outbreaks linked to exposure to turtles or their environments

The three overlapping outbreaks involve three different strains of the Salmonella bacterium.

In total, as of Friday, 66 people, more than half under 10 years old, have been reported infected from 16 states.

Eleven of the victims required hospitalization for their illness. No deaths have been reported.

Salmonella Sandiego outbreak: To date, 45 individuals have been infected with this strain in 10 states (California-3, Georgia-1, Massachusetts-2, Maryland-5, New Jersey-5, New Mexico-3, New York-18, North Carolina-1, Pennsylvania6, and Virginia-1).

Continue reading on Examiner.com Three outbreaks, three Salmonella strains, all linked to small turtles: CDC - National infectious disease | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/infectious-disease-in-national/three-outbreaks-three-salmonella-strains-all-linked-to-small-turtles-cdc#ixzz1qu4BiXXx

Nature responds to Cape Cod's warm winter

Spring is here. Actually, it never left.

BREWSTER —

By Rich Eldred

Cape Codder

Posted Feb 08, 2012

The 50-degree days this week were another reminder that so far this is the winter that wasn’t. Outside of occasional cold days temperatures have been balmy and it’s rained far more than snowed.

“It’s been a crazy year,” observed Mark Faherty, science coordinator at Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. “We had a green darner (a dragonfly) in December at Fort Hill. Insect activity is high because of the lack of frost.”

Faherty is also president of the Cape Cod Bird Club and he knows Cape Cod always gets its share of stray birds, lost migrants or ones blown in by storms. But the weather has enticed several to hang around.

“There has been an ash-throated flycatcher at Fort Hill (a bird more at home in the western scrub), a painted bunting in Eastham (it lingered at a feeder until Jan. 25) and a western kingbird in Orleans,” Fahey reported. “There was a massive flock of warblers at Marconi [Wellfleet].”

Those warblers should’ve gone south.

“Small insect eating migratory birds go to the Caribbean or central America where they spend the winter,” Fahey noted. “This December there were an inordinate number of insectivores ones that were hanging around the Cape. A black-throated blue warbler is still in Wellfleet, coming to a suet feeder. There have been a lot of late [migratory] seabirds, shearwaters into late December.”

A grey catbird was reported in Barnstable in mid-January. On the flip side, birds that winter on Cape have found other homes. Ducks that usually float on our ice-free ponds can do the same on the mainland.

One of the most unusual birds was a brown booby.

“That’s a big mostly tropical seabird. The only place they breed is Hawaii, you can see them off Miami,” Fahey explained. “One was found in Dennis in August and it ended up on the Breakwater in Provincetown through mid-December. So a bird that is never seen north of Miami was hanging out in Provincetown fishing with cormorants.”

The same bird turned up at Cape Cod Canal at the end of last month. The mid-Cape Christmas bird count (Dec. 27) produced a record 136 species.

While the weather has been kind to birds, so far, it has been a grim story with cold-stunned sea turtles.

“We’re up to 149 turtles, so it’s well above average,” reported Sanctuary Director Bob Prescott, who head sup turtle rescue efforts. “That’s a pretty high number, and because of the lateness of the season there are more dead than alive. We had 55 live (Kemp’s) ridleys and four [live] loggerheads out of 13. Right now there are only 31 live ridley’s and two live loggerheads in rehab. So in the end we’re seeing significant mortality.”

Normally, the cold-blooded turtles go south but some get caught in the relatively warm waters of Cape Cod Bay. When the cold weather shocks them the wind and waves toss the limp turtles up on shore. This year the warmer temperatures and lighter winds have left them in the Bay longer - chilled by low temperatures for a longer time but not helplessly washed ashore.

“This was a new experiment in nature,” Prescott said. “It was a nice experimental design. The turtles didn’t strand until well after Thanksgiving. There weren’t many northwest or westerly winds to blow them ashore. We were getting southwesterly winds into early December.”

In early January the water temperature was still 44 degrees, very warm for that time of year but too cold for turtles.

“On big windy days the water over the tidal flats in Brewster and Orleans is 10 to 12 degrees colder,” Prescott noted.

Most of the dead turtles are juveniles. Prescott pointed out that next year could be the first when the impact of the Gulf oil spill shows up. The spill was in 2010 and the two-year old juveniles will be here next summer.

“We’ll see what the sea surface temperatures mean for springtime. Often when we get warmer waters we get more warm water fish, black sea bass, scup might spawn in the Bay in greater numbers,” Prescott added.

One concern is deer ticks. When the temperature tops 35 degrees they’re active. A freezes will slow them down but not stop them as it would a mosquito.

“They actually synthesize glycerol, they make anti-freeze,” said Larry Dapsis, an entomologist with Cape Cod Cooperative Extension Service. “So if you go to an area like Wisconsin where it’s 30 below, they’re happy out there. We’ve recorded Lyme disease cases 12 months a year.”

Cape Cod remains a deer tick hotbed.

“Based on our research about 50 percent of adult ticks carry Lyme disease,” Dapsis said, adding that he’s been getting tick calls since October.

“Deer ticks carry two or three diseases, one that’s got out attention is babesiosos. Over half the cases in Massachusetts occur on Cape,” he noted.

Babesiosis attacks blood cells and causes flu-like symptoms.

Dapsis predicted that the dearth of acorns last fall will led to low mice populations next summer. If the deer tick nymphs can’t feed on a mouse they are more likely to bite humans.

“In 2004 we had a lack of acorns. In 2005 we had a 47-percent increase in Lyme disease,” he explained.

So there is something else to look forward to. He also predicted a big year for winter moths this spring, not so much because of the warm winter, but due to a heavy flight of mating moths in late November.

Dapsis warned gardeners to be on the lookout for two new pests: the brown marmorated stinkbug, an imported bug that invades homes in the winter and devastates crops in the summer. The spotted winged drosophila (a fruit fly) has also arrived in Massachusetts and can destroy soft fruit crops. It has spread here from British Columbia in just two years.

Source: Wicked Local Falmouth

Copyright 2012 Falmouth Bulletin. Some rights reserved

Tufts study focusing on how development and global warming affect wildlife medicine

Taken from a Worcester Telegram article, January 31, 2012, titled, "Outdoors: Rodent-control poisons killing local hawks, owls":

"Tufts is doing considerable research along with its renowned wildlife clinic work. One current study focuses on how development and global warming are significantly affecting wildlife medicine here.

"Annually receiving many wild animals in their clinic, Tufts is in a unique position to note significant patient-pattern changes. Both the species makeup and numbers of patients are changing. For example, the normal pattern of turtle patients at Tufts coincides with periods of their greatest movements across roads, where they’re all too frequently hit by vehicles.

"In spring, when they’re eagerly looking for females, male turtles are far more frequently injured. In recent years, they’ve been arriving for emergency treatment as early as April, about a month earlier than normal. From late May to July, most injured turtles are females, especially after rains, when they get hit while looking for soft soil to lay their eggs.

"In August and September, most injured turtles are males, again looking for females. Females are able to mate late and store sperm, which can fertilize their eggs even years later — in fact, up to a decade later. This last turtle movement and resultant injuries are now occurring as late as November.

"Tufts and other vet schools around the country are obliged to send their valuable wildlife treatment data to government authorities. Unfortunately, that treasure of information is just being stored with no one analyzing it. There’s neither money nor motivation for analysis. The turning in of that paperwork is a bureaucratic formality. There’s certainly enough stuff in there collectively around the country for a dissertation. Too much work and information that could benefit wildlife is currently being wasted. Dr. Pokras would like to see that changed."

Using technology
"Outdoorsmen and women should check our state’s new, entertaining and informative outdoors blog for communication with biologists, park rangers, agricultural and recreation experts about outdoor adventures. You can get their suggestions for hiking, hunting, birding, fishing, farm tours, boating, camping and more. Go to www.mass.gov/blog/environment to help make your outdoors experience both more fun and successful.

"EEA secretary Richard Sullivan announced the Get Outdoors Massachusetts Mobile Apps Contest inviting smart phone mobile application developers to create applications to help the public find outdoor recreation hot spots featuring natural resources in Massachusetts.

"The idea is for app developers to create a public connection to the commonwealth’s best outdoor activities and destinations. The submission deadline is March 30, and registration is free.

"Prizes include the opportunity for entrants to showcase their work to local technology executives, as well as a chance to join wildlife biologists on bald eagle banding expeditions or black bear surveys, a local farm bed-and-breakfast weekend stay, a year-long MBTA subway-bus LinkPass, and the opportunity to sell winning apps after offering them free to the public for a year. Winners will be announced on April 18.

"Many will appreciate the smart phone accessible service that will be developed at no cost to the taxpayer. For information, go to www.mass.gov/eea."

Further links:

Tufts Wildlife Clinic

Interesting case at Tufts: Snapping Turtle

8 Endangered Sea Turtles Board Plane To Warmer Climate

Turtles Fly From Boston To South Carolina

BOSTON -- On the coldest day of the winter, eight rescued and endangered sea turtles from Massachusetts are headed south by private plane to warmer temperatures.

The recovering cold-stunned turtles are being cared for by the New England Aquarium and were transferred Sunday afternoon from Hanscom Field Airport in Bedford.

More than 40 young turtles had become trapped on the north side of Cape Cod this past fall and slowly became hypothermic as the waters cooled. They stranded in December and were rescued by staff from the Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary at Wellfleet Bay.

With eight turtles now medically stable, officials at the South Carolina Aquarium approached North American Jets owner, Mason Holland, to see if the seven Kemp’s Ridleys and one hybrid sea turtle could hitch a ride south.

Holland agreed because he had an aircraft in the Boston area doing demonstration flights over the weekend.

Once the turtles arrive in South Carolina, they will head to the aquarium where they will finish their rehab and eventually be released in the late spring.

Kemp’s Ridleys are the world’s most endangered sea turtle species.

Copyright 2012 by TheBostonChannel.com. All rights reserved.

Source: http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/30217974/detail.html#ixzz1jYsJYH6Z

Proposed scalloping regulations aim to protect sea turtles

By DON CUDDY

doncuddy@s-t.com

The scallop industry has until Jan. 18 to weigh in on new regulations proposed by the National Marine Fisheries Service to help fishermen avoid encounters with sea turtles, which sometimes become entangled in their gear.

The measure would require scallop vessels with a dredge width of 10½ feet or larger to use a "turtle deflector dredge" in the waters along the mid-Atlantic coast, west of 71 degrees west longitude, from May through October. The fisheries service is seeking public comment on the proposal through Jan. 18.

Research has shown that loggerhead sea turtles are frequently found in the area and have been inadvertently caught by boats fishing there from June on. May was included in the proposal as a precautionary measure, based on satellite sightings of turtles in scalloping areas during that month.

In encounters with the scallop fleet, turtles usually don't fare well, said Ron Smolowitz of the nonprofit Coonamessett Farm Foundation in East Falmouth, which has led the research into the new gear with funding from the scallop industry and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Tests of the new dredge gear have shown the modifications to the traditional design will not compromise the structural integrity of the dredge nor reduce scallop yield, according to NMFS.

Dan Eilertsen of New Bedford owns six scallop boats and worked with Smolowitz on developing the gear. Eilertsen has already deployed the TDD gear on his boats and expressed general satisfaction with its performance.

"It fishes well but it takes a little more fuel," he said. "They're a little harder to pull around but they fish well. They're at least as good as the others and they may be better, if anything."

To give the industry time to develop TDDs for the scallop fishery, the proposed measure would go into effect one year after the ratification date if, as expected, the measure is approved. If Framework 23, as the rule is known in the industry, is adopted on March 1 the TDD regulations would become effective on March, 1, 2013, and the new dredges would become mandatory in these areas starting May 1 of next year.

The fisheries service is also proposing a revision to the schedule for the yellowtail flounder seasonal closure on Georges Bank and in Southern New England waters. If implemented, closures would be imposed during months with the highest catch rates rather than for consecutive months at the start of the fishing year as is now the case.

For questions or more information on these changes, contact Emily Gilbert, a fishery policy analyst at NMFS, at 978- 281-9244.

Source: SounthCoastTODAY