COURTESY OF NOAA
A green turtle.
EASTHAM – Sea turtles will be the focus of an upcoming presentation by Massachusetts Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary at the Cape Cod National Seashore.
Mass Audubon has been researching and rescuing sea turtles off the Cape’s beaches for over 30 years.
Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary Director Bob Prescott will be making a one-hour presentation about the local sea turtles and the challenges they face as part of the “Tuesday Evening Series” at the Salt Pond Visitor Center in Eastham.
The Cape’s waters are an important developmental habitat for juvenile leatherback, green, loggerhead and Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles.
The turtles also face the challenges of getting tangled and hit by boats in the summer months, and getting cold stunned in the late fall and into the winter.
The 2014 stranding season was the worst on record as over 1,200 turtles were cold-stunned and stranded on Cape beaches including over 1,100 Kemp’s Ridleys, the most endangered species of sea turtle in the world.
About 60 percent of the sea turtles that washed ashore were found alive and over 90 percent of those turtles are still alive today with the help of other organizations including the New England Aquarium.
Prescott has been actively involved in coastal issues and research and has studied topics such as whale strandings, seal distribution around the Cape and the home range of box turtles.
The free event will be held at 7 p.m. on August 11.
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