Cape Cod: Cold-stunned Kemp’s ridley #s Break Records

Godfrey-cold-stunned turtles

Example of cold-stunned sea turtles
photo by permission: Matthew Godfrey
North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission

Winter water temperatures at Cape Cod and along the Eastern seaboard are known to catch a few “dawdling” sea turtle youngsters off guard each year. If they fail to beat flippers toward Florida soon enough, the consequences can be dire. It’s called “cold stunning,” and since mid-November, 1200 sea turtles, mostly Kemp’s ridleys, have washed ashore (“stranded”) along the beaches of Cape Cod Bay. Valiant efforts of professionals and scores of volunteers have saved most, but three hundred have died or were found dead.

Sea turtles are reptiles, so when the water cools below their ability to adapt, they become the equivalent of floating ice cubes. It’s no joke, though. Their vital systems drop so low they can’t eat, swim, avoid predators, or fight off infections, like pneumonia.

As reported in today’s New York Times, “the usual trickle (of cold-stunned turtles) has turned into a flood.” According to ClicktoHouston.com, fifty Kemp’s ridleys were transported to Galveston’s Sea Turtle Hospital for treatment. Some went on to the Houston Zoo.

By 2010, decades of conservation efforts had increased Kemp’s ridley nests to the highest level since 1985. I visited Padre Island National Seashore that year to watch the first hatchling scramble to the sea after the Gulf oil spill. Sadly, nesting success rates for the Kemp’s ridley have declined since. Every turtle saved now resets the clock, shifting this smallest and most endangered of sea turtles again onto the path away from extinction. We can all help.

Kemp's ridley hatchlings-Padre Island National Seashore June 2010 Photo: Katy Pye

Kemp’s ridley hatchlings-Padre Island National Seashore June 2010
Photo: Katy Pye

The Massachusetts Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary is working around the clock and the sheer number of rescued turtles has stretched resources big time. If you want to donate supplies or funds, that would be terrific. If you also pass this call through your social networking–and in-person–pipelines, so others can help, you are one, fabulous turtle angel!

single turtle fleuron

 

Praise for novel, Elizabeth’s Landing

Diane Wilson book jacketThis was too long for FB, but I HAD to share.

I just received this endorsement from Diane Wilson, the most compassionate, courageous, and powerful woman I have the privilege to know. After being blown away by her book, I drove to a 1 day writer’s conference in Santa Barbara several years ago just to see her talk. I’d written the first “solid” draft of all the shrimping sections, having spent hours and days reading about the issues, the history of conflict over the turtles, and regulations shrimpers are under. I’d watched many YouTube videos to see how the fishing is done and described what I saw. 

I cornered Diane on a break and told her about the book and asked if she knew a shrimper I could talk to, who might help me make sure I’d gotten it right. After hesitantly saying she’d be glad to help, the first thing she asked was, “Is Grandpa a Gulf shrimper or a bay shrimper.” Uhhh, embarrassing. I had no clue; didn’t know there was a difference. I’m surprised she didn’t walk out right then.

Shrimping rewrite support-2-rs-1_edited-1

My desk during the rewrites. Diane’s book for courage, her photos for inspiration, and the sweetpeas as a reminder there is a garden and world beyond my computer screen.

But she stuck with me, read, corrected, re-read my fixes, and when she said Grandpa was real, I knew I could relax. Some of my favorite parts of Elizabeth’s Landing are there thanks to Diane’s own doggedness. Thank you, Diane. Your praise, and all you do and stand for, touch my heart. And give me strength!

If you haven’t read her books on her own environmental and social justice work, please do. Amazing stuff, read like novels, but all true.

“I can vouch for Ms. Pye’s dedication to the truth and her compassion for sea turtles.  I’m a shrimper from the Gulf Coast of Texas, and when Katy Pye asked me to make sure her depictions of shrimpers and shrimp boats in her book was accurate, I was a bit hesitant.  I am a fifth generation shrimper and despite our faults, funny and hard nosed ways, these are my people.  I love them.  I think many people don’t understand them so I’m a bit protective. But Katy was dogged about seeking me out!  Wow, Katy! You are as bull-headed as any shrimper I know.  So Katy’s narrator, Elizabeth, is pretty close to Katy.  Same stubbornness.  Same feistiness. I admire Katy for tackling this difficult subject and taking such care and thoughtfulness in her characters.  Katy is as much the heroine of her life as her character Elizabeth is of this book.  A wonderful read!”

Find Diane’s first book here at Chelsea Green or the usual online stores.

seagulls on cable-adj_edited-1

A photo Diane shared with me, which inspired an image in the book. These are wires connecting the boat to the net during a shrimp drag.

Elizabeth’s Landing-Nook e-book!

FOR AGES 11 TO THE AGELESS

It’s true! It’s a miracle! Okay, that’s overstating it, but how it feels after six years. An e-book version of Elizabeth’s story is available through Barnes and Noble’s Nook site. If you don’t have a Nook device, don’t worry, you can download the app for free and read on your computer or other mobile devices. Go to B&N’s Mobile Apps webpage to sign in, sign up, and connect to the right download.

If you’re the something soft and flexible, tree-based-book type person, the Print-on-Demand version will be out by June through Amazon. A Kindle version will go up about the same time, maybe sooner if I’m successful formatting it myself, as I did the Nook. Watch my Facebook Author site, Follow me here, or leave your e-mail on the Contact Me page above for updates.

PLEASE, once you’ve finished the book, leave feedback and ratings at these sites, Goodreads, Facebook it, blog it, etc., because…

single turtle fleuronA portion of all my book sale profits support worldwide sea turtle conservation and education programs. B&N has e-book gift cards. Bookstores do, too. I’m just sayin’ . . .  shrimp fleuron

Gull patrol

MENDO LAUNCH

Flags are flying–get out your calendar. The revised book launch date at Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino, CA. is June 30th, 6:30 p.m. Tux, tails, and formals optional, but my tiara’s getting steam-blasted and the side seams of my Senior Prom dress are sprung WAY out for the event.

I’m working on Grandma Linnie to do some of the catering.975 Apple, pear, blberry pie 2010_edited-1

Deepest thanks to everyone who has given writing help, an ear to moments of pain and joy, celebrations at key steps, and for believing all these years I really was writing a novel.

Photo by Katy PyeIndie publishers and indie bookstores are trying hard to work together so each can survive and grow. I’m publishing with the “big houses” (interpret at will) because it is the most direct, profitable way for me to get books into readers’ hands. Please support your local, or any independent bookstore, and encourage them to carry books you want to read. I’m working to collaborate with them, too.

Book Blurb

Port Winston—home to sun, sand, and shopping. What’s not to like? Everything, to 14 year-old Elizabeth Barker, uprooted mid-school year to the Texas coast. When Grandpa, with more judgments than the Old Testament, pronounces her 10¢ shy of worthless and headed for trouble, Elizabeth bolts for Wayward Landing beach—the county’s last wild haven.

A chance encounter with an endangered, nesting sea turtle ignites new purpose, friendships, and trouble even Grandpa couldn’t predict. Her fight to save the Landing unearths complex family ties to the powerful developer and catapults her against those she loves. When the Deepwater Horizon oil slick threatens the turtles’ Louisiana feeding grounds, Elizabeth’s journalist mom hits the front lines. And Elizabeth’s fears and plans hit overdrive.

Elizabeth’s Landing, a compelling environmental and family saga, bridges risk and loss to hope and hearts —human to human, human to animal, human to world.

single turtle flip fleuron

Ages 10 and up.

P.S. Turtle nesting season has begun along the Gulf coast. Info under Elizabeth’s Sea Turtles tells you the best places to visit to see turtles or hatchling releases. Donations are always welcome.

Celebrate 10/15! California’s THUMBS UP to Pacific Leatherbacks!

WAY TO GO, CALIFORNIA!

Leatherbacks get better chance than the grizzly bear

September 26th, California Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation naming the critically endangered leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) the state’s marine reptile.

This Monday, October 15th is — and every October 15th to come:      

Pacific Leatherback Conservation Day!

Special thanks to Assembly member, Paul Fong, the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, Oceana, and the many organizations, individuals, and legislators who made this happen.

Leatherbacks are the “Texas*-sized” member of the sea turtle species. The largest, they lay the biggest eggs in the highest number of clutches, travel the greatest distances (and to more varied environments — tropical to subarctic), and dive the deepest (like, whale deep, up to 3,000+ ft/900+ m), looking for their favorite food, jellyfish.

Leatherback-Wallace Nichols

Leatherback swimming off Mozambique
photo: Wallace Nichols. Creative Commons

Imagine an animal as delicate and water-filled as a jelly, powering such a huge reptile around the world. The Pacific coast of California is one foraging habitat for leatherbacks, which can now find protection within a 16,000 square-mile “critical habitat zone” up and down the state.

Jellies
photo: Petr Kratochvil

This week’s THUMBS DOWN for HAWAII

The bad news for leatherback and loggerhead turtles hanging out around Hawaii is the National Marine Fisheries Service has relaxed regulations, supporting the island’s long-line industry by increasing the number of turtles that can be legally caught (even killed) as by-catch during swordfish fishing.

Longline & turtle drawing from Sustainable Sushi.com

Image from Sustainable Sushi.net
No artist credit given

In November the numbers for leatherbacks “go up to 26, more than a 60 percent increase, and the loggerhead catch to 34, about a 100 percent increase.” (Washington Post Oct 6, 2012). While these numbers seem small, both sea turtle species have suffered major population declines in the last few decades due to fishing, egg and turtle poaching, and ingesting plastics. Female leatherbacks reach breeding age when they are between 7 and 13 years-old. They may lay up to 10 clutches a year, they only nest every 2 to 7 years (2-4 is average). With all they face surviving to reach adulthood, then reproduce, cutting down threats, rather than raising limits on them, seems prudent.

As bad is the by-catch issue, escaped and discarded plastic is arguably the worst enemy of the ocean and its inhabitants. I taped this photo to my back door as a reminder to take cloth shopping bags with me and to watch for plastic-alternative packaging.

Leatherback hatchling hugs

Leatherback hatchlings
photo: Daphne Goldberg CC

Keep balloons on a tether and dispose of properly–this does NOT include releasing them into the sky*!

* Speaking of Texas and sky, watch for my next blog post, “UPDATE: Kids Winning for the Atmosphere,” coming soon.