Sea Turtles on the Move
Lifestyle Organizations and EventsPublished July 31, 2010 at 5:18 pm No Comments
A most amazing venture, to protect our sea turtle population along the gulf coast, is in full swing. In June, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service coordinated a plan to manually relocate the sea turtle eggs to a temperature controlled NASA facility in Florida. Meticulously unearthered, by paid and volunteer assistance, the turtle eggs were placed in Styrofoam containers and driven by FedEx trucks nearly 500 miles to their resting place at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. The average female loggerhead nest contains 125 eggs. With over 700 nests expected to be transferred to NASA, that calculates out to roughly 87,000 eggs hitching a ride to Florida.
Big Task
This is no small task given the tenuous nature of sea turtle eggs. Cracking and temperature are an obvious threat to the eggs, but so is the fact that even slightly changing the position of an egg can cause the death of its contents. The move is unprecedented, in that normally sea turtle proponents lobby to keep the nest untouched and to alter human behavior to support their growth instead. “Lights Out” campaigns, that encourage human occupants along the shores to turn their lights out to keep the turtles from moving toward land once hatched, can be seen up and down the U.S. seaboard.
The damage to many sea turtle species, including the endangered Kemp’s Ridley, has been significant due to the oil disaster. Sea Turtles of all varieties have been washing ashore dead, some obvious victims of oil but others without any physical signs of contact with the oil spill. In a move that has left some scratching their heads, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service is proceeding with the annual release of Kemp’s ridley turtle hatchlings off Padre Island National Seashore. The rational is that Texas has been relatively spared from the effects of the oil spill. Their hope is that by the time the sea turtles are ready to leave the nest, the oil spill will be contained or cleaned up.
Good News
The good news is the plan appears to be successful so far. The first nest of baby sea turtles to hatch at the NASA facility was released into the wild this week. With NASA’s head biologist, Jane Provancha, on hand to witness the breathtaking occurrence, hope is in the air. Officials have no way of knowing how successful this mission might ultimately turn out to be, but one thing is certain. We cannot afford to loose an entire generation of sea turtles from man’s failure to act.
Images courtesy of NASA
