Will Sea Turtles Be The Big Victims of the Gulf Oil Spill?

Kemp's Ridley sea turtle trudges through beach, photo by krembo1

The sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico may turn out to be the ones in the most trouble from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Even though they haven't shown signs of oil, they may be ingesting it.

Dr. Mike Ziccardi, a veterinarian who runs the Oiled Wildlife Care Network and is handling all the non-bird oiled wildlife in the gulf, now says they're getting a high number of dead turtles, 156 so far. Mostly juveniles and mostly the rarest kind, Kemp's Ridley, TampaBay.com reports. The dead sea turtles "are in higher numbers than you would expect," he told Reuters.

No one is sure what killed the turtles. There was Dr. Ziccardi was initially very cautious, noting that turtles just wash up dead this time of year and that they showed no oil. Some blamed shrimpers. OnEarth, the NRDC blog, says that Sea Turtle Restoration Project (STRP) estimates fishermen kill 25,000 sea turtles each year.  And that's way down from a decade ago, before the mandated Turtle Exclusion Device, when 86,000 were wiped out.

Now Dr. Ziccardi he's contemplating something more insidious: that they are injesting the oil but it doesn't show up on the outside. "Marine mammals and sea turtles are much more likely to have less apparent external exposure and greater internal exposure than avian species," he wrote on his blog. Animals that don't show oil can have internal oil damage. Sometimes you can see it in their feces but others have "sub-apparent internal exposure." You can find that by looking for microscopic toxin damage or chemical analysis, he says.

Kemp's Ridley's are critically endangered and only found in the gulf and on the east coast. They're carnivorous bottom-feeders, exactly what you don't want to be in this oil spill. It's the smallest sea turtle, nests during the day and en masse at sites called arribadas. In 1947 42,000 nested in one day near Rancho Nuevo, Mexico. That fell to 5,00, but has climbed up to 7,866 in 2006. They nest at Padre Island, TX, too, but only 127 nests were counted in 2007.

A big set back was a 1979 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Ixtoc I,  that's a lot like Deepwater Horizon. the Blow Out Preventer failed. The spill was slow moving. Relatively few dead animals were found. Though the direct link was never found, the Times says, the population went way down.

All seven species of sea turtle are either endangered or threatened and five live in the Gulf of Mexico, the Parks Service says. The other big threat to sea turtles is people stealing the eggs and eating the females when they go ashore to lay them. It's mostly outlawed, but just this week Mexican cops caught two guys with 5,800 eggs near Acapulco.  In Denespar, Indonesia, cops confiscated 71 huge, endangered green sea turtles about to be served as food in a stall, the AP reports. The Jakarta Post says they also just caught men smuggling 12,000 turtle eggs in cigarette cartons aboard a ferry.

Looks like we might not have oiled birds being soaped up for camera, but something much slower and grimmer.

Where to Go See Turtles in the Wild

Where to Go See Animals Down South

Iguanas Dropping, Manatees Gathering, Pythons Surviving in Florida's Cold

Florida's harsh cold spell is a bonanza for animal watchers, if not for the Florida animals themselves. Manatees are gathering around power plants and hot springs. Iguanas are dropping from trees in a kind of cold coma. Cold-stunned turtles are warming up in hotel rooms. Pythons are sunning themselves. And waterfowl are migrating down from other states, says Gary Morse, a spokesman for Florida's Fish and Wildlife Commission.


Manatees: The manatees are the ones wildlife officials are worried about. They're native, endangered and hate the cold. Sea cows need water at least 68 degrees to survive. Last year at least 56 died of cold stress, the FWC says. This year they'd like people to give them a break and back off for a bit. "They are stressed from the cold and from not eating. We advise people not to approach them in these times," Morse says. "Our mere presence as human beings can cause them to flee the very thing they need." The FWC already pulled two frigid manatees from cold water and sent to a zoo and an aquarium to warm up.

Sea Turtles: Sea Turtles often turn up at the same hot spots that draw manatees. But if they don't they become sluggish and eventually get cold-stunned and beach themselves. Rescuers are swooping in and taking them to the The Turtle Hospital on the Keys and the Georgia Sea Turtle Center have resorted to putting them up in hotel rooms and kiddie pools, respectively.


View AnimalTourism.com in Florida in a larger map View AnimalTourism.com Florida in full context

Florida wants to get rid of invasive species, especially those that were dumped into the wild as pets and pose a danger to the animals that are supposed to be there. People mostly agree--except when it comes to animals that are fun to watch. Wildlife populations are always moving and in flux, after all. 

Iguanas: Florida has 48 invasive reptile species, mostly lizards. The Mexican spiny-tailed iguana can grow to four feet and has been around since 1978. The iguanas get cold and fall from trees. Some helpful Floridians take them inside to warm up--something wildlife officials frown on.


Pythons: Nobody likes pythons, which are overtaking the swamps by the thousands. Jenny Tinnell, FWC biologist, put out a statement encouraging hunting: "They may be out in the open more than before to find the warmth of the sun, and we hope hunters, in the normal course of hunting in these areas, will take advantage of the opportunity to help stop the spread of this nonnative species."

Birds: Birds that normally fly to Georgia, may have to fly to Miami to get the warmth they need this year. No one is sure what will happen to the resident monk parrots and parakeets that dot the state, either.

Where to see wildlife in Florida

See Turtles Connects Resume-Building Volunteers, Fishermen and Researchers

Baby Leatherback Turtle,
Courtesy of Jennie - My Travels.

Whether you're an aspiring biologist searching for hands-on experience or just a traveler who wants to watch a few turtles on vacation, See Turtles has an expedition for you, says Brad Nahill, marketing director and co-founder. While the See Turtle website showcases mainly the latter, a kind of turtle tourism lite for those with less time than money, the conservation group is branching out. They now connect longer term volunteers who have more time than money.

This is exactly what people are looking for in the age of the Great Recession, animal tourism and voluntourism. Recent college grads, facing 15% unemployment, are willing to take unpaid gigs in a related field. Since posting an application for volunteer opportunities in April, they've gotten 500 queries. Wealthier Gen Y grads latching onto the British concept of the Gap Year may be willing to pay thousands of dollars for a resume-boosting international experience. But Nahill hopes to offer the opportunity for a more reasonable fees that go directly to the community, along the lines of $20/day.

"Pretty much anyone can go down and measure a turtle and grab eggs," says Nahill. "It's not like darting a tiger...it's safe." And he should--that's how he started out in turtle conservation after college. In many ways sea turtles--which are all either endangered or threatened--are the ideal eco-tourism target. Even the non-skilled can help--whether that's doing research, patrolling beaches or just showing up on tours. Just the tourists presence can keep poachers away, says Nahill; even better, they supply the money for the guides and guards.

Nahill hopes to maximize the impact of See Turtle volunteers by picking only programs that that help animals "facing threats that tourism can directly reduce." That means the programs end up helping the community by offering locals a job or financial incentive to protect the animals instead of making money off them in other ways.

Years ago, fishermen who also poached turtles in Baja, California, told the group's other co-founder, Dr. Wallace Nichols, that they'd be willing to stop if they had another way to make a living. Many were already guides to the area's seasonal friendly gray whales, so Nichols founded Groupo Tortuguero, which got communities working with turtles.  In one project, for example, locals help catch turtles by net each month for researchers. More commonly, they can guard beaches or guide tours. And some get paid by offering researchers, volunteers or tourists a room in their home and meals.

These days, their biggest threat is getting caught in fishing gear, Nahill says, but that's still a significant take. And every day the mean are working on turtles, they're not fishing. More importantly, the tour groups have already helped change attitudes: the eggs are a lot less enticing to eat if you, your uncle or your friend depends on their hatching to survive.

See if See Turtles knows of any turtle work that matches what you have to offer.

Looking for more places to see turtles? Click Here

New Photos of Montauk Monster Make it Look a Lot Less Monstrous, more like a feral pig

Newsday's Joyce Brown obtained new photos of the Montauk Monster from beach goer Christina Pampalone, who was on the fateful Montauk beach where the Monster washed up a couple weeks ago. Brown explains that the corpse was washing back and forth in the waves, so Pampalone got a shot from a different angle.

Pampalone must have gone through exquisite torture the last few days knowing she had much more revealing photos. Then again, if her photo came out first we all wouldn't have been so enthralled and would've had to get some work done this week.
Also, I have to wonder if the original shot was provocatively chosen to make it look like a beak. (And if so, say thanks for the mindless summer diversion.)

Yesterday we discussed how the first shot showed a beak, but with teeth, ruling out the theory that it was a turtle without a shell. Pampalone's photo shows that it's not really a beak at all, but the exposed nasal cavity. Also, it shows HUGE lower canine teeth. And fur. And ears.

With the new photo, I'm changing my guess to pig, maybe feral pig. The big theory now is dog. Since the front of the face shows so much decay and since the water can do such crazy things to a body, it's hard to say what was going on in the top of the mouth. But man, those bottom canines look awfully big for a dog. A pig, however, has really big lower teeth. I'm going to throw in that it was a feral pig, just because 1) it makes more sense a wild pig would find its way to the ocean 2) feral pigs are trendy and there are way more of them than you think.

Where to See Animals in the Northeast

Here's a handy photo of a feral pig skull from Ft. Leonard Wood. Pig's big teeth are on bottom.











Here's a dog skull from the Royal Veterinary College. Dog's big teeth on top.








And here's a close-up of the monster's teeth--or what's left of them. Monster's big teeth on bottom.