BOURNE – The National Marine Life Center in Buzzards Bay received 15 Kemp’s ridley sea turtles Wednesday from the New England Aquarium’s facility in Quincy.
All of the turtles recently washed up cold-stunned on Cape Cod beaches since the stranding season began about a week ago.
“With the recent weather we are all of a sudden seeing a number of turtle strandings,” said Kathy Zagzebski, the center’s executive director.
“And the season started slowly but now they are coming in full force.”
A team of workers and volunteers hovered around the 15 turtles, taking vital signs, administering fluids and slowly warming their body temperatures.
“We do a complete admitted exam. We take blood. We take radiographs. We do a full set of vitals and a full set of measurements,” Zagzebski said. “We administer medication, including antibiotics and fluids to address their infection and dehydration.”
Zagzebski said many of the turtles they received were in tough shape on arrival.
Most will receive treatment in Buzzards Bay for several months before they can be released back into the ocean further south or when the waters warm.
The turtles were delivered in banana boxes and lined up for processing and intake.
From there, the most serious cases were triaged with various fluids and then placed into incubators.
They also tested each of the turtles in their salt water tanks to determine how well, if at all, they could swim.
“Some of them are going to go in our intensive care unit, our incubator, while they continue to be warmed up gradually,” Zagzebski said.
“Others are strong enough to swim already so they’ll be put into the pool, and we’ve got a great assembly line of volunteers and interns and staff here to take care of all 15 turtles and get them ready on the road to healing.”
The turtles will stay at the facility until they fully recover.
“By the time they strand on Cape Cod they are usually in critical condition,” Zagzebski said. “So it takes approximately three to nine months for most of the turtles.”
Some turtles can take much longer as the center has two turtles who have been in rehab for one and two years, respectively.
“Sometimes is take a very long time,” she said.
Any turtles ready to be released back into the wild in January and February will be driven down south to be released in warmer waters.
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