A sign of oncoming winter is the beginning of the sea turtle stranding season on Cape Cod. It happens each November and December.
The first two hypothermic sea turtles of the season have arrived at the New England Aquarium’s Animal Care Center in Quincy.
The two juvenile Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles are being slowly re-warmed about five degrees per day at the New England Aquarium’s Animal Care Center in Quincy.
The 3 and 5 pound sea turtles were found in Dennis and Brewster with body temperatures of 55.7 and 58.6, close to the water temperature of eastern Cape Cod Bay.
Sea turtles are cold-blooded and with medical intervention can even survive body temperatures in the low 40’s. The black shelled turtles will have their body temperatures increased just five degrees per day for four days until their body temperatures are in the mid-70’s. This slow re-warming strategy helps the turtles fight off infections.
Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles are the most endangered sea turtle in the world, and each summer hundreds of them migrate to the Cape to feed on crabs.
However, each autumn, anywhere from 25 to 200 of these sea turtles will fail to migrate back south due to the difficulty of navigating out of Cape Cod Bay, which has land on three sides except to the north.
More turtles are expected following Thursday's Nor’easter.