Cold-Stunned Turtle Recovered From Mashnee Island

The last thing Kim McIntyre expected while walking her dogs in the early hours of December 15 was to get involved in a turtle rescue.

The Bourne resident was on Mashnee Island when one of her dogs, Kanji, sniffed out a rather large beached turtle.

“At first glance, the turtle absolutely looked deceased,” Ms. McIntyre said. “I didn’t think there was a chance that it was still alive. It was not showing any movement whatsoever.”

She snapped a few photos and continued on her way home. She ran into some neighbors who, luckily, knew exactly what to do next.

“They had heard that you should actually call these things in,” Ms. McIntyre said, “because often the turtles are cold-stunned. I’m so glad they told me.”

Cold-stunned sea turtles are commonly found in the waters off Cape Cod between the months of November and January, when water temperatures are falling below 50 degrees. Sea turtles are ectothermic, meaning that the cold-blooded reptile’s body temperature is dependent on the temperature of the water around it. Below 50 degrees, the water is too cold for turtles and causes a kind of paralysis, rendering them unable to eat, drink or swim because their body temperatures are too low. Some of these turtles wind up beached by high tide waters and left behind as water levels recede, like the turtle Ms. McIntyre found on Mashnee Island.

Ms. McIntyre and her neighbors George and Harriet Place contacted the Mass Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. The organization picked up the phone right away, Ms. McIntyre said, and she could tell that this was a situation that it takes seriously.

Turtles this far north typically head to more-tropical waters as winter moves in, but according to Mass Audubon Wellfleet’s website, cold-stunned juvenile turtles have been winding up on Cape Cod beaches since the 1970s, trapped by the “hook” of the Cape and disoriented in the currents. Rescuers must work quickly recovering and rescuing turtles, especially at this time of year. Typically by mid-January, Ms. McIntyre was told, the waters are far too cold for a successful turtle rescue.

“It’s a very busy time of year for them because, without help, these turtles will die,” Ms. McIntyre said. “They can’t survive and [Mass Audubon] described it as triage; they’re really in a position where they need rehabilitation and they need help.”

Within 45 minutes, two people from Mass Audubon showed up with a van and equipment. In the meantime, Ms. McIntyre had been asked to move the turtle above the high tide line, if she was able. With the help of her neighbors, she was able to get the turtle to higher ground and, to keep it protected from anyone or anything that might disturb it, covered the turtle with a wool blanket.

“Interestingly enough,” Ms. McIntyre said, “she started moving her head. They felt certain that it was just what they call a cold-stunned turtle; definitely, she must’ve been because she started lifting her head, which was pretty amazing.”

The two individuals from Mass Audubon—identified by Ms. McIntyre as Lindsey and Dylan—told Ms. McIntyre that so far, the organization has recovered or rescued more than 600 turtles this season.

“They definitely took this very seriously, took quick action, and were very pleased to get a phone call from the Upper Cape,” Ms. McIntyre said, “because they tend to hear a lot about turtles in the Lower Cape, but not so much in the Upper Cape.”

The rescuers from Wellfleet Bay believe the turtle Ms. McIntyre found to be a female between 7 and 10 years old, and likely is a loggerhead or possibly a Kemp’s Ridley. The turtle, they observed, was also pretty healthy despite being cold-stunned. The loggerhead species of turtle has the largest geographic distribution of any sea turtle in the world, yet is still classified as a threatened species under both state and federal legislation regarding endangered species.

Mass Audubon collects data on its turtle recoveries and rescues going as far back as 1979, when the Wellfleet Bay staff and volunteer corps began patrolling the beaches of Cape Cod, looking out for cold-stunned turtles. In 2021 Mass Audubon recovered nearly 800 turtles, 95 of which were loggerheads; 627 of those turtles were Kemp’s Ridley, an endangered species that is the most commonly found cold-stunned sea turtle in this area. Twenty-five green turtles, another threatened species, were recovered as well. But those numbers are dwarfed by those of 2014, when the organization recovered more than 1,200 stranded cold-stunned turtles.

According to a recent Facebook post, Mass Audubon in Wellfleet so far this season has recovered more than 600 turtles. The turtles were then flown to various facilities, such as the New England Aquarium, where they can receive the critical care they need to survive.

“The whole experience was amazing,” Ms. McIntyre said. “The people were really so wonderful to deal with and so quick. This was obviously something very important to them and clearly, they have a system that works.”

Interestingly, most of the cold-stunned turtles found on Cape Cod beaches are from the Lower and Outer Cape, making this Bourne discovery a bit of an anomaly. In 2021, Mass Audubon reported that about three-quarters of its recoveries came from Wellfleet, Truro, Eastham and Orleans.

For Ms. McIntyre, this bit of news was a sort of call to action for her and has inspired her to do more research into cold-stunned turtles, their rehabilitation and local organizations involved in rescue and recovery.

“I have to say,” she said, “the part for me that was so exciting, I think, is to find out that you can help these turtles. When I first saw the turtle I thought it was gone, I thought there was nothing to be done.” But now that she knows the process for calling in a potentially cold-stunned beached turtle, Ms. McIntyre said, she is hoping to spread the word around the Upper Cape community to raise awareness.

“They don’t receive a lot of calls from the Upper Cape…so I think it’s really important to spread the word on the Upper Cape to make sure that we’re also aware of the Mass Audubon in Wellfleet and what they can do,” she said.

After the ordeal, Ms. McIntyre and her family headed south to Curaçao for a holiday vacation, all the while thinking about the turtle that they’d affectionately nicknamed Lucky the Loggerhead. Things came full circle when, while on vacation, Ms. McIntyre and her family were snorkeling and stumbled across a couple of sea turtles.

“Something about the whole experience just really came full circle for us,” she said. “They’re just lovely animals, they’re really very docile, and they were very happy to swim with us and spend time with us. Something about that just made us remember the turtle we now call Lucky the Loggerhead.”

Mass Audubon’s website stresses the importance of acting quickly after discovering a stranded turtle during winter months. The organization advises community members to remember that a cold-stunned turtle may appear lifeless but is often still alive, so the best course of action is to move the turtle above the high tide line—however, never grab or hold the turtle by its head or flippers. Cover the turtle with dry seaweed or a dry towel, and mark the area with visible debris so rescuers can find it easily.

The Wellfleet Bay hotline for cold-stunned turtles is 508-349-2615, extension 6104.

Originally published by The Bourne Enterprise