Herb the sea turtle heading for warmer sanctuary

12/13/2008, 10:50 a.m. EST The Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) — His name is Herb, he's 75 pounds with a chestnut brown shell, and when the sea turtle was discovered on a Cape Cod beach earlier in the month, he was very, very cold.

Luckily, the volunteers from the Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary at Wellfleet Bay who found Herb alerted officials, who transported him to the New England Aquarium in Boston.

Veterinarians and rescue biologists slowly warmed Herb about five degrees each day. When he was found on the Truro beach on Dec. 3, his body temperature was in the 40s. It's now a stable temperature in the low 70's.

That means Herb is ready to make another voyage — this time to the Riverhead Foundation in Long Island, a nonprofit dedicated to the rehabilitation and release of seals, whales, dolphins, and sea turtles.

Herb was the largest of the hypothermic sea turtle rescued from Cape Cod during the fall.

Most hypothermic sea turtles found on Cape Cod that survive are discovered before Thanksgiving. Herb's larger size helped protect him. Larger turtles lose heat more slowly than smaller turtles.

Herb is one of six loggerhead turtles that washed up late this season. They averaged about 50 pounds, and all have survived. Herb is still a a relatively young turtle, probably between 4 and 7 years old. As an adult, he will weigh 200 to 250 pounds.

Unfortunately many other sea turtles that wash ashore have not survived.

Rapidly dropping temperatures have caused a high number of endangered sea turtles to wash ashore dead on Cape Cod beaches.

© 2008 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

New Rules Endanger Cape Species

Experts: New rules endanger Cape species
By FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
December 13, 2008 6:00 AM

Animal advocates say they are worried about the Bush administration's decision this week to loosen regulations protecting endangered species, including the large whales.

The changes, which would reduce the involvement of federal scientists and block the use of the Endangered Species Act to combat global warming, go into effect in about 30 days and were completed in four months.

They will eliminate some of the mandatory, independent reviews that government scientists have performed for 35 years on dams, power plants, timber sales and other projects, which developers and other federal agencies have blamed for delays and cost increases.

The rules also prohibit federal agencies from evaluating the effect on endangered species and the places they live from a project's contribution to increased global warming.

Current rules require biologists in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Marine Fisheries Service to sign off on projects even when it is determined that they are not likely to harm species.

Interior Department officials described the changes as "narrow," but acknowledged that the regulations were controversial inside the agency.

Federal agencies still could seek the expertise of federal wildlife biologists on a voluntary basis, and other parts of the law will ensure that species are protected, they said.

"Nothing in this regulation relieves a federal agency of its responsibilities to ensure that species are not harmed," Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said in a conference call with reporters.

But others said the federal Act was gutted.

Among the animals in the Cape and Islands region protected under the Endangered Species Act are large whales, sea turtles, plovers, terns and more, said Robert Prescott of the Massachusetts Audubon Society in Wellfleet.

There would be less oversight of local projects, such as the expansion of seaports, construction of outfall pipes and the relocation of international shipping lanes, local advocates for animals said.

"The problem is, we are all working in the endangered species field with a precautionary principle," said Charles "Stormy" Mayo, a whale expert with the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies. "If you're going to make an error, you should make it on the side of caution. It's very clear that the changes that have been made do not add to the caution."

Between 1998 and 2002, the Fish and Wildlife Service conducted 300,000 consultations. The National Marine Fisheries Service, which evaluates projects affecting marine species, conducts about 1,300 reviews a year.

In the Northeast, there are about 200 to 300 formal and informal consultations annually, said Teri Frady of the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Members of Congress, including Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., sent a letter in early September to Kempthorne and Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez objecting to the "weakening" of the long-standing consultative roles of the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service.

The representatives questioned whether an agency such as the Department of Homeland Security would hire qualified biologists to assess the effects of a project on endangered species.

"The people who are doing the consulting are the same people doing the work," said Jake Levenson of the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Yarmouthport. "The review can be less critical."

President-elect Barack Obama has said he would work to review the changes. But because the rule takes effect before he is sworn in, he would have to restart the lengthy rule-making process. A House leader pledged to overturn the regulations using the Congressional Review Act after consulting with other Democratic leaders. The rarely used law allows Congress to review new federal regulations.

In a related development, the Interior Department also finalized Thursday a special rule for the polar bear, a species that was listed as threatened in May because of global warming. The rule would allow oil and gas exploration in areas where the bears live, as long as the companies comply with the Marine Mammal Protection Act.




Source: http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081213/NEWS/812130309

A Blitz for Bog Turtles

Massachusetts: A Blitz for Bog Turtles

By Kate Frazer

"Just look for the places you’d go if you were a turtle," explains restoration specialist Angela Sirois as she leads the group deeper into the wetland. Surveying the maze of small streams, mounds of matted vegetation and twisted trees in the muddy valley, the task of finding a tiny bog turtle seems easier said than done.

Luckily, we have technology on our side.

Sirois is using her telemetry kit to track turtles whose shells have been outfitted with small radio transmitters. She walks carefully, pointing the giant antenna toward the ground to pick up a signal. It’s like she’s taking the pulse of the land.

Before long, the series of beeps gets faster and louder. Her hand disappears into a subterranean tunnel, then emerges with a squirming turtle.

A Familiar Face

The turtle stretches out its neck and grasps Sirois’ finger with its tiny scaled hand. The location of a small notch in its shell reveals its identity.

"This is L4R1," says Sirois. “She’s especially exciting to find because we’ve been tracking her since 1990, when she was just a hatchling. She’s 18-years-old now. We’ve followed her to a nest and have watched her lay eggs. The fact that she’s been recruited into the breeding population is a good sign that this wetland is providing the right habitat.”

Researchers – many sponsored by The Nature Conservancy – have been studying the movements of the threatened bog turtle in the Berkshires’ calcium rich wetlands for nearly three decades. This region is one of the few places on Earth with the long-term data necessary for understanding the habitat needs of these long-lived creatures.

Protecting Turtles, Protecting Wetlands

After weighing and measuring the turtle and inspecting her shell and her radio, we return L4R1 to the mucky tunnel and continue our search.

"This is a perfect world for bog turtles," says Sirois. The wetland unfolds at the foot of a mountain. The streams run down the rocky slopes collecting calcium, then braid through tall grasses in the valley. During a time of year called spring emergence, turtles use these rivulets like roads as they cruise around in search of mates and nesting areas.

But development in and around wetlands like this one has left the bog turtle population extremely fragmented. The two distinct populations of bog turtles in the Eastern U.S. are separated by a 250-mile gap, with Northern bog turtles occurring in fewer than 200 sites in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The fact that these populations cannot mix, decreases their genetic variability and, potentially, the longevity of the species.

Small Creatures, Big Hopes

"What we learn about bog turtles here can help us protect the wetlands they use throughout the entire region," explains Sirois. "We’re finding that maintaining the right hydrology and diverse native plant communities is essential."

That is why the Conservancy couples its research efforts with restoration projects. For years, the tri-state Berkshire Taconic Landscape program has deployed teams of interns each summer to control invasive plants like Phragmites that invade bog turtle habitat and destroy basking and nesting areas.

Sirois, who began her conservation career as an intern in this program, admits that tackling invasives is monotonous work. "It has taken years of control by intern crews to create the kind of wetland that bog turtles seek for nesting," she explains. "This kind of work is never really done. But each year, it gets easier to maintain the open habitat these turtles need."

With her eyes still scanning the ground for turtles, Angela points out a group of nice hummocks that once was a patch of Phragmites. "We recently found a bog turtle nesting here," she says. "While it’s not direct proof, it is one very hopeful sign that our restoration work is making a real difference."


Kate Frazer is a Nature Conservancy conservation writer based in Boston.
Photo © Tony Gola/MassWildlife (Bog Turtle)



Source: http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/massachusetts/news/news2871.html

Acquisition of two properties facilitates the connection of the Taconic and Rudd Pond State Parks

The Nature Conservancy’s Mount Riga Land Acquisition Completes the South Taconic Trail along the Berkshire Taconic Ridge



Albany, NY — December 10, 2008 — Today The Nature Conservancy's Eastern New York Chapter announces the acquisition of 621 acres along the Berkshire Taconic Ridge. The land exchange will fill in a long sought missing piece of the South Taconic Trail between these popular sections of New York's Taconic State Park at Copake Falls and Rudd Pond, providing the alignment for an estimated five miles of new, public trails, and expanding the park by some 250 acres. The proposed trail route traverses high elevations along the western side of the ridge offering spectacular views of the Harlem Valley and the Catskill Mountains in the distance.

The transaction, which involves New York State, The Nature Conservancy and a private corporation, results in the permanent conservation of 621 acres along the New York State side of the Berkshire Taconic Ridge. “The Nature Conservancy was interested in brokering this deal because it will protect the Taconic Ridge’s intact, healthy forests along the Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York border. The Mount Riga properties, the largest remaining private holdings available for development within the Berkshire Taconic landscape, are very important to conserve,” explains Katie Dolan, executive director of the Conservancy’s Eastern New York Chapter (ENY).

“This deal represents one of the most complicated transactions ever undertaken by the ENY Chapter and marks the completion of a project that began nearly thirty years ago,” says Mark King, director of land protection programs. “New York State has, for many years, wanted to extend the Taconic trail system and sought to purchase missing link parcels along the Ridge. The Conservancy was interested in helping out, since the wetlands at the base of the Ridge include habitats for bog turtles and other rare species.”

The success of the project resulted from the willingness of the three parties, The Nature Conservancy, Mount Riga Incorporated and New York State Parks, to stay engaged long enough to craft an exchange of interests that met each of their goals.

“The key leverage making this multi-faceted deal come together was a generous donation of a 320 acre property along the ridge to the Conservancy in 2003. Mount Riga Inc. wanted to acquire part of the lands donated and as a result, agreed to encumber a portion of their property with conservation easements and sell other lands to New York State. In exchange the Conservancy conveyed a portion of the donated property, restricted by a conservation easement, to Mount Riga,” adds King.

"Since the end of the 19th century, the families that own Mount Riga Incorporated have protected over 4,000 acres of the Berkshire Taconic Plateau. We continue to believe that responsible private ownership is an important part of land conservation. We are pleased to cooperate with our neighbors, the ENY Chapter of The Nature Conservancy and New York State Office of Parks and Recreation who understand that our intense and locally focused interest in Mount Riga contributes to the protection of a larger ecosystem," says spokesman Robert O'Brien. "Enhanced recreational opportunities for hikers and conservation of environmentally significant land offer benefits that will continue for centuries into the future."

"The Nature Conservancy will continue to look at other property easements along the New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut borders,” adds Dolan, “to complete its overall forest block preservation goal of 30,000 protected in the Berkshire Taconic landscape.”

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. The Conservancy and its more than 1 million members have protected nearly 120 million acres worldwide. The Eastern New York Chapter (ENY), the Conservancy’s first chapter, owns and manages 43 nature preserves, encompassing over 15,000 acres. ENY works across six landscape-scale sites from the Catskills to the Berkshires and from the Hudson River to the shores of Lake Champlain. To learn more, visit www.nature.org/eny.

Source: http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/newyork/press/press3821.html

Turtle Journal

Saving the World, One Turtle at a Time

Volunteers walk beaches the beaches of Massachusetts' Cape Cod Bay in November and December searching for stranded sea turtles.

For the past 10 days, Don Lewis has combed beaches day and night. On Friday, he found a Kemp's Ridley in the waves. The turtle, which fit in the palm of his hand, "felt like an ice cube when you picked it up," he says, but it blinked when he touched its eyelid.

On Sunday, he found a Loggerhead and another Kemp's Ridley. The Kemp's Ridley was flipped on its back and unresponsive.

He doesn't know their fate once they're turned over to the aquarium.

Lewis, 61, a government retiree, blogs at www.turtlejournal.com. He says he's relieved that rain Tuesday broke the cold snap.

"You pick up one of these small critters that looks like it's frozen, and you put it in your overcoat to protect it from the wind … and it starts moving and absorbing heat," he says. "That is an emotional moment."

Dozens of cold-stunned turtles wash up

By Patrick Cassidy

pcassidy@capecodonline.com

November 25, 2008

WELLFLEET — Russell and Kerry Barton of Concord, N.H., count themselves lucky to have been part of an effort to save at least 30 cold-stunned sea turtles on Cape Cod beaches over the weekend.

"It was an amazing experience," Kerry Barton said yesterday about finding a 60-pound loggerhead Sunday morning at Point of Rocks Beach on Cape Cod Bay in Brewster. Barton was on a patrol with Don Lewis, a volunteer with the Massachusetts Audubon Society's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.

The New Hampshire couple, who won the opportunity to go on patrol with Lewis during a silent auction earlier this year, were among dozens of volunteers who found turtles on Cape beaches over the weekend.

The stranding season, which lasts from shortly before Halloween until mid-December, is in full swing, Dennis Murley, teacher and naturalist at the sanctuary, said as he checked for life in some of the turtles yesterday.

The cold-blooded reptiles were hit hard by a cold snap over the weekend, Murley said. There have been 42 stranded sea turtles reported on the Cape so far this season, he said.

The turtles that survive will be rehabilitated at the New England Aquarium in Boston before being transferred to other rehab facilities and eventually reintroduced into the ocean.

"Hopefully this is a once-in-a-lifetime trip" for the turtles, Murley said.

Last year, 39 turtles were reported stranded on the Cape. The most reported in a single year came in 1999, when almost 300 turtles washed up on area beaches.

This weekend a rapid drop in air temperatures, combined with offshore waters in the upper 40s, made for an unusual mix that stunned a large number of different types of turtles that would not normally have stranded at the same time, Murley said.

As temperatures fall and the animals' heart rate and body temperature drops, they become immobile. Floating on the surface to breathe, they are at the mercy of winds that blow them to shore. Once on shore, they can freeze to death.

Video: Stunned turtles packed for transport in Wellfleet

Those that survive until they can be driven to rehab in Boston have an 80 to 90 percent chance of continued survival, Murley said.

At the sanctuary yesterday, Murley and field assistant Emily Goczalk placed three live Kemp's ridley turtles in banana boxes donated by Super Stop & Shop in Orleans for the ride to Boston. In another box, four not-so-lucky dead turtles were being shipped so that researchers could perform necropsies on the foot-long animals.

Usually between 10 and 20 percent of the turtles that arrive at the New England Aquarium are dead, aquarium spokesman Tony LaCasse said. This year that ratio has jumped to more than 60 percent, he said.

All of the turtles sent to the aquarium come from the Cape, he said.

The turtles at the sanctuary yesterday were juveniles, Goczalk said. "At this age they're just going where the Gulf Stream takes them," she said.

Most Kemp's ridley turtles — 95 percent — are born on a single beach in Mexico, Goczalk said. They are the most critically endangered sea turtle, although all seven species of sea turtle are on the federal endangered species list, she said. Kemp's ridleys also make up the majority of sea turtles that strand on Cape beaches.

While the other turtles were sent to Boston, the loggerhead turtle found by the Bartons was kept in Wellfleet until sanctuary officials could determine if it was alive or dead, not always an easy task with turtles.

"We've hit some — I call Lazarus turtles — that pop back to life the last couple of days," he said.

Source: http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081125/NEWS/811250315/-1/news

What to do if you spot a stranded sea turtle

• Move the turtle above the high-tide line
• Cover it with dry seaweed or eelgrass to protect the animal from wind
• Mark the spot with beach debris, such as a lobster buoy
• Call the Cape Cod Sea Turtle Stranding Network at 508-349-2615
• If possible, note time, tide, wind direction and speed, and water temperature

  Source: Massachusetts Audubon Society Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary

30 Stunned Turtles Stranded on Cape Cod Shore

Chris Boardman

Story Created/Updated: Nov 24, 2008 at 1:35 PM EST

WELLFLEET - Cold air temperatures and still-warm offshore water temperatures over the weekend stunned and stranded at least 30 turtles on the shores of Cape Cod Bay, including a 60-pound loggerhead, according to officials with the Massachusetts Audubon Society Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.

The annual turtle stranding season, which lasts from shortly before Halloween until Christmas, is in full swing, Dennis Murley, teacher and naturalist at the sanctuary, said this morning. There have been 42 stranded sea turtles reported to the sanctuary so far this season, he said.

Video: Stunned turtles packed for transport in Wellfleet

The number of turtles found by volunteers and staff over the weekend is not unheard of, but a cold snap combined with still-warm offshore waters in the bay have made for a potentially lethal mix that has stunned a large number of different species that would not normally be found together, he said.

While many of the turtles may die from the experience, those that survive until they can be driven to the New England Aquarium in Boston have about a 80 to 90 percent chance of survival, Murley said. Most of these turtles were found in Brewster.

"Hopefully this is a once in a lifetime trip," Murley said.

At the sanctuary this morning Murley and field assistant Emily Goczalk boxed up three live green and Kemp's Ridley turtles in banana boxes - donated by Stop and Shop in Orleans - for the ride to Boston. In another box four not-so-lucky turtles were being shipped so that researchers could perform necropsies on the roughly foot-long animals.

Another staff member, science coordinator Mark Faherty, stacked the boxes in his car for the trip to Boston.

The larger loggerhead turtle was being kept at the Wellfleet sanctuary until it could be determined whether it was alive or dead, not always an easy task with turtles, sanctuary officials said.

Although this year's strandings are not unusual, the number of turtles found on area beaches appears to be on the rise, Murley said. The increasing numbers are actually a good sign, he said, adding that it could be proof of efforts to protect the turtles' nesting beaches in southern climates.

Most Kemp's Ridley turtles - 95 percent - are born on a single beach in Mexico, Goczalk said. The Kemp's Ridley turtles are the most critically endangered sea turtle, although all seven species are on the federal endangered species list, she said.

Anyone who finds a sea turtle stranded on a beach at this time of year should move it above the high tide line and cover it with eel grass or beach grass, Murley said. A marker such as a lobster buoy should be placed near the turtle and the location should be noted, he said. The sanctuary can be contacted at 508-349-2615.


Source: http://www.abc6.com/news/34995879.html