Cape Cod (Florida): This Kemp ridley turtles is just one of many who has been stranded on the beaches near Cape Cod.
Standing over the turtle flapping on a tray, a biologist gingerly places a needle in its neck to take blood.
Soon, photos will be taken and tags attached to one of its flippers.
The procedure is the final step before this turtle, is returned to the ocean.
It's a dramatic turnaround for the turtle who was among hundreds of Kemp's ridley, loggerhead and green turtles that beached mostly in November and December on Cape Cod.
Mark Faherty from Mass Audubon's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary puts the phenomenon down to changes in temperature.
"So, here on Cape Cod, in November and December, when things start to get cold, we start to see storms coming out of the north, the water temperature starts to drop and gets below 50 degrees, we have this unlikely phenomenon that happens where tropical and subtropical juvenile sea turtles start washing up on our beaches." Faherty says.
Most of the rescued turtles suffer from compromised immune systems and pneumonia due to "cold stunning," a hypothermic reaction that occurs when they are exposed to cold water for prolonged periods and are slowed to the point where they can't care for themselves.
"They're very thin. They probably haven't been eating much at all," says Nicole Hunter, a rescue and rehab biologist at The New England Aquarium.
"On top of that they might have had injuries or wounds they might have been kind of bashed around from the straining itself. It can be really tough on them."
According to Faherty the numbers of these cold-stunned turtles turning up on Cape Cod beaches have risen sharply in the past decade.
"The numbers have been going up dramatically. So, over the last 15 years, every five years the number of standings has gone up about threefold. And so, over the last five years we've averaged about 700 sea turtles, mostly Kemp's ridley's, the most endangered in the world, washing up on bayside beaches here on the on the Cape each winter" Faherty says.
A decade ago, volunteers combing the beaches would find a couple of dozen. This year, they recovered 818 turtles which is nearly twice what they found in 2016 and 10 times more than in 2008.
There are occasionally cold-stunned strandings in Florida, Texas and even as far north as the Chesapeake Bay.
But these are mostly isolated events connected to cold snaps and involving a few dozen turtles. Most of these turtles can be returned to the ocean relatively quickly, while the Cape Cod turtles take months to recover since they often are at sea much longer and, as a result, are much sicker.
Some dead ones turn up frozen solid.
Experts believe the spike in cold-stunned turtles is a bit of a climate change story with a twist.
Many of them are moving further northward from the Gulf of Mexico thanks to the warming waters of the Gulf of Maine in the past decade to feed on crabs, mussels and shrimp.
"We know that the oceans are warming, that's very clear. Very clear signals in terms of the way populations of fish, lobsters, they're all moving north or further offshore into cooler waters. Many fishermen know that this is happening and it's affecting the sea turtles as well. The Gulf of Maine, which are the waters north of Cape Cod up to the Canadian maritimes, are warming particularly fast based on a recent study. And so, I think this is allowing more of these sea turtles to recruit in off of the Gulf Stream and end up in Cape Cod waters" explains Faherty.
A paper in January in the peer reviewed journal PLOS ONE concluded that years in which there was warmer sea-surface temperatures, there were higher numbers of strandings.
The paper also projected there could be as many as 2,349 strandings of Kemp's ridley turtles by 2031.
But other experts argue that climate change alone can't explain the high numbers of strandings.
Some argue the spike in strandings is a sign that sea turtle species populations, including the Kemp's, are doing better over the past decade due to greater protections.
The populations had been decimated by development, destruction of nesting sites and accidently being caught in commercial fishing nets.
Then, there is the unique geography of Cape Cod, which sticks out in the ocean 90 miles and takes a hard left at Provincetown for 35 miles, effectively serving as a barrier for turtles in the Cape Code Bay.
Many turtles sense the need to move south as waters cool but often are unable to navigate their way out of the bay.
Once turtles are found alive, volunteers quickly pack them into a banana box and drive around a dozen at a time to the Quincy turtle hospital with temperatures in the car in the 50s to avoid shocking the turtle.
Many turn up malnourished, dehydrated and suffering a range of other maladies.
Turtles are given a health assessment and often antibiotics before eventually transitioning to warmer and saltier water in one of the hospitals many holding tanks.
As it regains its strength and health, the turtle gets hearty helpings of herring and squid as they swim in their tanks.
At this time of the year, the turtles are boxed and transported by car to Florida, where they are released into warmer waters.
The latest batch of turtles were sent to the National Aquarium Baltimore, which coordinated with four other groups to release them on an isolated and wind-swept beach at the Cape Canaveral National Seashore.
One by one, the workers lift the turtles by their shells many flapping their flippers in protest and walked them to edge of the surf, where they were released.
They quickly swam away, their dark shells disappearing under the foamy water.
"So every single one that we can rehabilitate and put back into the ocean has a chance to contribute to conservation directly,"says Kate Shaffer, the National Aquarium's rehabilitation manager who was part of the release.
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