the first sea turtle nesting season
after the 2010 BP oil spill was
contained is underway in the northern
Gulf of Mexico and biologists and turtle
conservation groups report a good
nesting season so far last summer as the
ruptured well spewed an estimated five
million barrels of oil into the Gulf
scientists and volunteers launched a
risky rescue moving fragile turtle eggs
away from the oil danger biologists and
volunteers moved about 28,000 eggs
mostly loggerhead turtles from alabama
and florida’s panhandle to nasa’s
kennedy space center the goal was to
spare the vulnerable hatchlings an
encounter with the oil the tiny turtles
were not tagged so no one really knows
where they are now and if they were
spotted they couldn’t be accurately
identified back on the Gulf Coast it’s
nesting season once again and
conservation groups like Alabama’s share
the beach are finding new nests almost
daily and encouraging sign but they
caution not to read too much into the
fines the nest looked normal the turtle
seemed normal so all in all it seems
like it’s a pretty good year of course
the turtles that are nesting this year
or not the turtle that nested last year
turtles nest every other year are there
about and so these turtles nested two
years ago what Weaver is really
interested in seeing is a year from now
when last year’s turtles that were here
during the earth build it had the
greatest effect from the oil come back
and nest on our beaches next and next
year every morning share the beach
volunteers comb Alabama’s coast just as
they’ve done every nesting season since
2001 looking for the tell-tale signs of
a turtle nest crawl marks and churned up
area near a nest site
and biologists are doing a study as part
of the natural resource damage
assessment attaching satellite tags to
incoming mother Turtles to monitor their
movements when the patrol spot a fresh
nest too close to the water line they
move the eggs before they set and become
more sensitive to movement they
carefully put the eggs in a new nest and
cordon it off we probably have less than
50 nesting sea turtles well here in
Alabama and so just losing a few of them
is a big deal in neighboring Mississippi
the institute of marine mammal studies
is running its own satellite tagging
studies to follow the movements of
Kemp’s ridley turtles imms executive
director moby solangi reports some
causes for concern about the gulfs
recovery this spring he saw a 20 to 30
fold increase in dolphin deaths most of
them baby dolphins and this was months
after officials stopped the flow of
leaking oil as we thought things had
stabilized there was this big jump in
the dolphin mortality more so being just
the babies and that started stabilizing
in march and early april as that
stabilized we saw a huge jump in the
turtle mortalities and just to give you
a comparison in the entire last year we
saw about 299 turtles that died as of
today we have 236 Turtles dead with half
the year still ahead the numbers are
expected to grow that these deaths are
result of the spill cannot be said
definitively but Salangi and other
researchers will be working to learn
more about the spills impact on turtles
and other creatures as far as the fate
of the little turtles released last year
translocation of the nest eggs was an
adequate move whether to succeed or not
it was more of heartwarming and heart
tugging way of doing things the only way
we can say was scientific as if we were
able to recover
or tag and follow and see where they
went an ominous right we will never know
that and until then it’ll always be an
enigma back in Alabama volunteers carry
on knowing they could be helping save an
endangered species people realize that
this beach is more than just a wonderful
place to come sunbathe and fish and hang
out you know it isn’t a critical habitat
not just important that a critical
habitat for an important very important
species in a dangerous piece PVC turtle
they cannot survive without this Beach
they have to nest on these beaches
you
after the 2010 BP oil spill was
contained is underway in the northern
Gulf of Mexico and biologists and turtle
conservation groups report a good
nesting season so far last summer as the
ruptured well spewed an estimated five
million barrels of oil into the Gulf
scientists and volunteers launched a
risky rescue moving fragile turtle eggs
away from the oil danger biologists and
volunteers moved about 28,000 eggs
mostly loggerhead turtles from alabama
and florida’s panhandle to nasa’s
kennedy space center the goal was to
spare the vulnerable hatchlings an
encounter with the oil the tiny turtles
were not tagged so no one really knows
where they are now and if they were
spotted they couldn’t be accurately
identified back on the Gulf Coast it’s
nesting season once again and
conservation groups like Alabama’s share
the beach are finding new nests almost
daily and encouraging sign but they
caution not to read too much into the
fines the nest looked normal the turtle
seemed normal so all in all it seems
like it’s a pretty good year of course
the turtles that are nesting this year
or not the turtle that nested last year
turtles nest every other year are there
about and so these turtles nested two
years ago what Weaver is really
interested in seeing is a year from now
when last year’s turtles that were here
during the earth build it had the
greatest effect from the oil come back
and nest on our beaches next and next
year every morning share the beach
volunteers comb Alabama’s coast just as
they’ve done every nesting season since
2001 looking for the tell-tale signs of
a turtle nest crawl marks and churned up
area near a nest site
and biologists are doing a study as part
of the natural resource damage
assessment attaching satellite tags to
incoming mother Turtles to monitor their
movements when the patrol spot a fresh
nest too close to the water line they
move the eggs before they set and become
more sensitive to movement they
carefully put the eggs in a new nest and
cordon it off we probably have less than
50 nesting sea turtles well here in
Alabama and so just losing a few of them
is a big deal in neighboring Mississippi
the institute of marine mammal studies
is running its own satellite tagging
studies to follow the movements of
Kemp’s ridley turtles imms executive
director moby solangi reports some
causes for concern about the gulfs
recovery this spring he saw a 20 to 30
fold increase in dolphin deaths most of
them baby dolphins and this was months
after officials stopped the flow of
leaking oil as we thought things had
stabilized there was this big jump in
the dolphin mortality more so being just
the babies and that started stabilizing
in march and early april as that
stabilized we saw a huge jump in the
turtle mortalities and just to give you
a comparison in the entire last year we
saw about 299 turtles that died as of
today we have 236 Turtles dead with half
the year still ahead the numbers are
expected to grow that these deaths are
result of the spill cannot be said
definitively but Salangi and other
researchers will be working to learn
more about the spills impact on turtles
and other creatures as far as the fate
of the little turtles released last year
translocation of the nest eggs was an
adequate move whether to succeed or not
it was more of heartwarming and heart
tugging way of doing things the only way
we can say was scientific as if we were
able to recover
or tag and follow and see where they
went an ominous right we will never know
that and until then it’ll always be an
enigma back in Alabama volunteers carry
on knowing they could be helping save an
endangered species people realize that
this beach is more than just a wonderful
place to come sunbathe and fish and hang
out you know it isn’t a critical habitat
not just important that a critical
habitat for an important very important
species in a dangerous piece PVC turtle
they cannot survive without this Beach
they have to nest on these beaches
you
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