Sea Turtles: Amazing and Endangered

Sea Turtles: Amazing and Endangered

What do you think of when you hear the phrase "the beach?" Sand and water? Yes, but there is a whole world of plants, birds and fish who call the North Carolina coast their home. Sea turtles are just one of the region's creatures that have captured the hearts of many visitors and residents and draw them back to the sand and water time and time again.

You might be wondering how this creature that spends almost all of its life in the ocean captures hearts. Next time you visit Topsail Island, in Pender County, visit the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center, and you will find out! The Center takes sea turtles from up and down the North Carolina coast that have been injured either by nature or by humans, and they have a long history of rehabilitating and releasing many turtles back into the Atlantic Ocean. Running solely on donations, this non-profit organization gives incredible care to these turtles. The Center is open to the public every day except Wednesday and Sunday, so you can visit the center, take a tour and hear the stories of the turtles that are currently housed there. The hospital is a small, converted garage on the waterway, but it is full of love. Once you have stepped inside, you will never think of a sea turtle in the same way again.

Another organization located on the North Carolina Coast is the Network for Endangered Sea Turtles (N.E.S.T.), which is a non-profit organization located in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Their mission is to preserve and protect the habitats and migration routes of sea turtles, as well as other marine animals, located between Oregon Inlet, North Carolina and the Virginia border. The loggerhead, green and leatherback sea turtles come as far north as the Outer Banks to nest, and the rare Hawksbill and Kemp's Ridley sea turtles also occasionally call the Outer Banks home as well. For more information, visit N.E.S.T. during your next visit to the Outer Banks.

The Pleasure Island Sea Turtle Project, serving Carolina Beach and Kure Beach, also offers volunteer services to ensure the safety and protection of all endangered sea turtle species. For videos showing recent hatchings in Carolina Beach, view Video #1 or Video #2.

It is very hard to estimate how many sea turtles, of any variety, there are in our oceans. There are two reasons for that. The first reason is that only the females return to the beach for nesting - males stay in the water and never come onshore. The second reason is that female turtles do not lay eggs every year. In Pender County, Topsail Island has been home to 63 nests in 2007. Compare that to 94 nests in 2006 and 72 nests in 2005. Bald Head Island reported 64 nests in 2006 and only 50 in 2007. Along the Cape Hatteras National Seashore of the Outer Banks, nest counts have ranged from 77 to 161 nests in the past 4 years.

Sea turtles are amazing creatures. They are the only turtle that are unable draw its head and legs inside its shell. Little is known about its life at sea because the females are the only ones that return to the sand, and that is only to lay her eggs. It is the sand, not the parents, that determines the gender of the turtles. Cooler sand produces male turtles while warmer sand produces females. Here in North Carolina, we have cooler sand so we are helping to supply the male turtle population. Unfortunately, this still has not kept all seven species of sea turtles off the endangered species list. Turtles are receptive to touch. The soft parts of their flippers and their shell are sensitive areas. It isn't recommended to try to "pet" a turtle if you come upon one on the beach. A nesting mother is intent on one thing, and one thing only. Either you will scare her away or she will bite you, with a consequence of losing a finger. Along with the loss of a finger, you will face a fine up to $100,000 or up to 1 year in prison for harassing or disturbing a turtle.

Sea turtles come in a variety of sizes. The Kemp's Ridley and Olive Ridley are the smallest, averaging in size around 22-30 inches and weighing 66-110 pounds, while the Leatherback turtle grows up to 6 feet long. The largest one recorded weighed in at 2,019 pounds. In all of the varieties though, the male and female turtles are the same size. The only major difference is that the males' tales are fatter at the base to hold his sex organs and he has sharper claws on his front flippers so he can grab the female during mating.

Most turtles have an acute sense of smell in water. They take in water through their nose and blow it out of their mouths. As it flows down the turtle's throat, the water flows over the smell organs. While the turtle can smell quite well, it does not hear well. It does have a single bone in its middle ear that conducts vibrations. Turtles are believed to only respond to low frequency sounds and vibrations.

Eyesight in turtles is quite good and is one of the ways they locate their food. Turtles are both carnivores and herbivores. Green and black turtles are solely vegetarian, feeding on sea grass and algae in the back bays. The Loggerhead, the Ridley, Hawksbill and Leatherback turtles are all carnivores. They eat a wide variety of foods ranging from crabs, mollusks and shrimp to sponges, squid and tunicates. The Hawksbill turtle plays an important role in keeping down the number of sponges that are forming on coral reefs.

Sea turtles are found throughout the world, primarily in the tropical and subtropical ocean waters. Kemp's Ridley turtles have been found as far north as Nova Scotia. While you can find them nesting on these beaches, the Kemp's Ridley will normally only nest on a remote beach near Rancho Nuevo, Mexico. All of the sea turtles lay their eggs in the soft sand of the beach, above the high tide line. The female will come onshore during the darkness of night, lay anywhere from 70 to 200 ping-pong ball sized eggs in one nest, cover them with sand and return to the sea by morning. Turtle watchers can tell you what type of turtle has visited their beach by the mound of sand and the tracks that are left behind. Somewhere between 45 and 70 days later, usually with a full moon shining, the babies will hatch out of their eggs, though it may take them a week to climb out of the nest. It is not clear how the babies find the ocean. Some researchers feel they follow the light of the moon on the water while others feel they follow their internal magnetic compass. Regardless, under the cover of darkness, they return to their homes.

All of this is taking place during the warm months between March and October, except for the Leatherback turtle, which nests in December. This is thought to be because they do not have a real "shell." If they lay their eggs in the warm summer months, they run a high risk of dehydrating on the beach because they do not move well on land.

Kemp's Ridley Turtles

Each species of turtle has its own distinction. The Kemp's Ridley, named after Richard M. Kemp, the fisherman who first described these sea turtles in Florida, is the smallest of the sea turtles, measuring only 30 inches and weighing in at 80-100 pounds. It is also the most endangered species because of their specific location for laying their eggs. Note: An endangered species is classified as any species which is in danger of extinction throughout its range. Threatened turtles are species which are likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future. The Kemp's Ridley turtle has a shell that is nearly circular and is sometimes wider than it is long. The top shell, or "carapace," is olive gray while the bottom shell, or "plastron," is yellowish-white. These turtles live for about 80 years and are mature and ready to lay eggs around the age of 12 years old.

Green Turtles

Green turtles are the largest of the hard shelled turtles, only the Leatherback is larger. A Green turtle can grow up to 3 feet and weigh 350 pounds. These turtles reach maturity somewhere between 20 and 50 yrs of age and will return to the beach where they were born to lay their own eggs. A female green turtle can lay up to five clutches, or nests, of eggs in one summer. They are not named for the color of their shells, although they contain green, brown and black swirls of color on them. They are actually called Green turtles because the fat that they have is green. The fat is one reason the green turtles have been hunted to the endangered level, especially in Florida. Another oddity to affect 50% of Florida's turtles is an illness called Fibropapilloma (FP) Tumors. FP is characterized by tumorous growths, which can range from very small to extremely large and are found both internally and externally. Large tumors can interfere with feeding and essential behaviors and tumors on the eyes can cause permanent blindness. These tumors have been documented in turtles worldwide and have been found on some populations of Loggerheads as well. People also want them for their meat, their shell and their calipee, which is a part of them next to their shell and a main ingredient in turtle soup.

Olive Ridley Turtles

Olive Ridley turtles are also relatively small. They can grow to be between 22 and 31 inches and weigh the same as the Kemp's Ridley. The Olive Ridley gets its name from the grayish green coloring of its shell. It is felt that these are the most abundant of all the sea turtles with an estimated 800,000 nesting annually, but also the most exploited. The Olive Ridley nests in an odd sort of way. A large number of turtles gather offshore and come in together in a gathering called an arribada. It is not clear what exactly drives them in to these arribadas, whether it is offshore winds, lunar cycles or the release of pheromones by the females. Oddly, because so many turtles are nesting at one time, a female might dig up a nest of eggs another female just laid. Not all Olive Ridleys nest in arribada. Some females may nest during the mass nesting and then come ashore in a few weeks, alone, and lay another clutch of eggs. According to the Marine Turtle Specialist Group (MTSG), there has been a 50% reduction in population size since the 1960s.

Leatherback Turtles

The Leatherback is the largest of all the sea turtles, measuring in at approximately 6.5 feet long. The largest Leatherback recorded weighed over 2,000 pounds. These turtles are highly migratory with migrations as far as 3,000 miles. They are covered with a leathery shell that has hexagonal bones imbedded in it and can be up to 1.5 inches thick. The top shell, the carapace, has seven ridges running from head to tail and tapers to a blunt point at the tail.

Their head and shell are predominantly black with pink speckles. They feed solely on jellyfish, so their mouths and throats have backward pointing spines to keep the gelatinous prey inside the turtle's mouth. Many die from becoming impacted after eating discarded plastic bags thinking they were jellyfish. This is one cause for the Leatherback to be placed on the endangered species list.

Loggerhead Turtles

Loggerhead turtles are named for their large head, which contains a powerful jaw for crushing whelk and conch. They are pretty turtles with their top shell being a reddish-brown and the bottom shell being a pale yellow. Their shells also have a slight heart shape to them. They are the main turtle found on the North Carolina beaches. One of the main reasons for this is that they like relatively narrow, steeply sloped, coarse-grained sand, just like the sand found in North Carolina. A Loggerhead turtle can live up to 50 years, but again, there is no definite life span known since the female turtle is the only one that comes ashore and she may only lay eggs every 2 to 3 years. She becomes sexually mature around the age of 35 and will lay 3 to 5 clutches of eggs during her breeding summers. After the babies make it to the ocean, they go into a swimming frenzy where they will swim for several days straight to get out to the ocean currents where they can be carried away from shore. Although their numbers are dwindling, they are still considered threatened and not endangered.

Hawksbill Turtles

Hawksbill turtles, named for their beak-like mouths, are easy to distinguish from the other turtles, as their bodies are slender and have a somewhat flattened profile. Hawksbill turtles are medium size, weighing in between 100 and 150 pounds. Their shells are the color of "tortoise shell," which is brown with streaks of orange, red and black. Because of the beautiful coloring found on their shells, they are hunted for their shell and are now on endangered species list. The Hawksbill is the only turtle whose shell is in layers overlapping each other like shingles on a roof. The back of the shell is serrated from the overlapping plates. Although they are found around the world, the largest gathering of nesting females is in Australia where between 6,000 and 8,000 nests have been found off the Great Barrier Reef. The age of maturity for laying these nests is not known, but researchers do know that a female will lay 3 to 5 clutches of eggs in one summer.

With such seemingly large numbers of turtles laying large numbers of eggs, it is hard to imagine they are endangered. Humans have become a deterrent to the female turtles before they even approach the beach. Many turtles are scared away from traditional nesting sights because of too much noise. Also, since a turtle is unable to go in reverse, some of them can't get over trash that is left on the beach, are stopped by sand castles that block their way, or get deterred by holes that people have not filled in when they are leaving the beach, and thus turn around and do not lay their eggs. Turtle eggs are targets for prey the moment the female leaves them in the sand. Raccoons, birds, dogs and humans are their first enemies. If the hatchlings make it out of the nest, they face more obstacles. They need to find their way to the water to live, but there are birds that are waiting to eat them on the land. In addition, with so much building going on along coastlines, the lights are confusing the babies and causing them to walk away from the ocean instead of towards it.

Once the turtles are in the water, they still are not yet safe. Due to their size, many (up to 90%) of the babies are eaten by ocean prey. If they make it beyond their first year, sharks become a big predator. The Leatherback turtles need to be careful of the Orca whale. Of course, man is still an enemy to the mature turtle as well. The loss of natural habitats is causing a decline in numbers. The Hawksbill is struggling due to loss of coral reefs, where is seems to live during its developmental years. Other turtles are facing a reduction in numbers due to garbage that is being thrown into the ocean, either accidentally or purposefully. Oil spills and other toxic spills and forms of pollution are taking their toll on these sea creatures. Along with this, scientists fear global warming is affecting sea turtles, just as it has been affecting other wildlife.

Since many sea turtles have been caught and drowned in fishing nets or line, organizations have passed bills in the protection of the sea turtles. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has mandated the use of Turtle Excluder Devices (TED) on all trawling and fishing boats. These metal doors allow the turtles to swim out of the nets while the shrimp and fish are forced into the nets.

All of the sea turtles are protected by various international treaties and agreements as well as national laws. The Endangered Species Act requires the US government to identify species threatened with extinction, identify habitat they need to survive and help to protect both. In doing so, the Act works to ensure the basic health of our natural ecosystems. Sea turtles are listed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) which means that international trade of this species is prohibited. Along with CITES, the SWOT organization, which is a coalition of worldwide conservationists, is offering solutions to the lack of centralized resources for global sea turtle data. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) share U.S. protection and jurisdiction for sea turtles. NOAA is responsible for conservation and recovery in the marine environment (the ocean) and USFWS protects the turtles on the beaches.

Individual states have also enacted legislation and ordinances for protecting the sea turtles that are landing on their own beaches. Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has enacted the Marine Turtle Protection Act. This act protects the sea turtles by stating that no one may take, mutilate, disturb or destroy the turtle, its nest or eggs at any time. Florida has also given coastal cities a model lighting ordinance to guide local governments turn down, or off, beachfront lighting. Researchers, scientists and volunteers feel that turning down the lights is helping the hatchlings find their way to the ocean. Along with the lighting assistance, volunteers are relocating nests, but only when necessary. Most people feel that if a turtle laid her eggs in a certain spot, she had a good reason for it. On the very populated beaches though, nests are being moved to protect the eggs. Also, screens and fences are being put up around nests so animals and humans will not disturb them.

Here along the North Carolina coast, many towns and individuals are helping with the lighting issue. Although there are no ordinances in the law books, volunteers from rescue teams are educating residents and vacationers about sea turtles and what they can do to help protect these large creatures while they are visiting and/or residing on the North Carolina beaches. Volunteers hold educational talks weekly in many towns where vacationers learn that keeping their outside lights on disorients the nesting and hatching turtles. If a hatching nest is near a house that has outside lights on, the volunteers will talk with the resident and ask them to turn off the lights. Once people realize what is happening, they are more than happy to turn off their lights. Most of the time, they will also venture to the beach with the rescue volunteers and stand watch over the nest and help the hatchlings make it to the ocean. On Topsail Island, the St. Regis Condominium complex has agreed to turn off the outside lights during the nesting and hatching months. Nests are also taped off and warning signs are placed around them so people are aware of the nests and will leave them alone.

Humans can do many things every day that will help the survival of the sea turtles. Cut the rings from the top of a six-pack before you throw it away, which will keep animals from getting their heads caught in it. Don't just let your plastic bags blow down the beach, keep track of them and dispose of them properly. If you have a house on the beach, try to keep your lights turned off during the night or use a special bulb that emits less light. Visit a place like the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center and give a donation of money to help support their efforts and those of other organizations found nationwide. See if you can volunteer your time, walk the beach to look out for new turtle nests or sit by a nest at night and guide the hatchlings toward the ocean. Sea turtles are graceful creatures that don't interfere with the lives of humans, so let's help them grow and regain numbers.

"For most of the wild things on Earth, the future must depend upon the conscience of mankind," stated Dr. Archie Carr, Father of Modern Marine Turtle Biology and Conservation.