We Must Save Sea Turtles

Sea turtles roam the planet in every ocean except the Arctic. Though it’s only the size of the little state of West Virginia, Costa Rica hosts five of the seven remaining species of marine turtles and has taken the lead in conservation efforts. And you, my fellow traveler, play a vital role.

We’d wait for them to lay their eggs along Mexican beaches and then dig up millions, taking them by pack trains of burros to market. We’d kill them by the millions in Ecuador so that we could sell turtle leather shoes in Italy (and other places), or make combs and trinkets. We relentlessly killed them everywhere on the planet.

Millions of eggs were (and still are) sold in bars to drunken patrons across the world as aphrodisiacs. Vast numbers were accidentally killed by drowning in huge ocean fishing nets or barbed tuna hooks. And, of course, innumerable beaches now sport hotels, resorts, and housing developments.

No more. Sadly, in just a few decades, these animals---which have survived for some 150,000,000 years---have been reduced to a tiny, tiny fraction of their former numbers.

Actually, they've probably been around for a few million years more than that, as evidenced by the discovery off a Scottish Island of a 164,000,000 year old sea turtle fossil, click.

Green Sea Turtle's Life

The green turtle is a large, weighty sea turtle with a wide, smooth carapace, or shell. It inhabits tropical and subtropical coastal waters around the world and has been observed clambering onto land to sunbathe.

It is named not for the color of its shell, which is normally brown or olive depending on its habitat, but for the greenish color of its skin. There are two types of green turtles—scientists are currently debating whether they are subspecies or separate species—including the Atlantic green turtle, normally found off the shores of Europe and North America, and the Eastern Pacific green turtle, which has been found in coastal waters from Alaska to Chile.
Weighing up to 700 pounds (317.5 kilograms) green turtles are among the largest sea turtles in the world. Their proportionally small head, which is nonretractable, extends from a heart-shaped carapace that measures up to 5 feet (1.5 meters). Males are slightly larger than females and have a longer tail. Both have flippers that resemble paddles, which make them powerful and graceful swimmers.
Unlike most sea turtles, adult green turtles are herbivorous, feeding on sea grasses and algae. Juvenile green turtles, however, will also eat invertebrates like crabs, jellyfish, and sponges.

While most sea turtles warm themselves by swimming close to the surface of shallow waters, the Eastern Pacific green turtle will take to land to bask in the sun. Occasionally seen sunbathing alongside seals and albatrosses, it is one of the few marine turtles known to leave the water other than at nesting times.
Green turtles, like other sea turtles, undertake lengthy migrations from feeding sites to nesting grounds, normally on sandy beaches. Mating occurs every two to four years and normally takes place in shallow waters close to the shore. To nest, females leave the sea and choose an area, often on the same beach used by their mothers, to lay their eggs. They dig a pit in the sand with their flippers, fill it with a clutch of 100 to 200 eggs, cover the pit and return to the sea, leaving the eggs to hatch after about two months. The most dangerous time of a green turtle’s life is when it makes the journey from nest to sea. Multiple predators, including crabs and flocks of gulls, voraciously prey on hatchlings during this short scamper.
Green turtles are listed as an endangered species, and a subpopulation in the Mediterranean is listed as critically endangered. Despite this, they are still killed for their meat and eggs. Their numbers are also reduced by boat propeller accidents, fishnet-caused drowning, and the destruction of their nesting grounds by human encroachment.

Turtle's Interesting Life

 Sea turtles are air-breathing reptiles remarkably adapted to life in the sea. Their streamlined shape, large size and powerful flippers enable them to dive to great depths and travel long distances.
The only time sea turtles leave the ocean is when females emerge to lay their eggs on a sandy beach.
A turtle must drag her great weight ashore, dig a nest, deposit about one hundred eggs, and cover and conceal the nest before returning to sea. The arduous process of nesting can take up to three hours.

 Nests are found by walkers the next morning. It looks as if a tractor has emerged from the ocean, turned around and gone back in the ocean.
The mother turtle leaves her eggs to incubate in the warm sand and never visits her nest again. A female will usually lay several nests during one season and many nest every two to three years.
Volunteers mark the nest for monitoring because the tracks and body pit containing the egg clutch are quickly obliterated by the wind, human foot traffic.
Here in the sugar sand of South Walton, the average incubation time for the eggs to hatch is about 62 days.

A joyful site is a succesfully hatched nest! This hatched nest was found at dawn. All hatchlings emerged about the same time, and left baby tractor tracks as they scurried directly to the ocean, in synch with the divine plan. This is not always the case anymore.

Sea turtle nest numbers looking good, although latest waves take out 2 green turtle nests

Waves bashing the Treasure Coast are having a negligible effect on the annual monthslong sea turtle nesting season that appears to be ending up with normal or better numbers of successful nests, according to preliminary estimates.
The Treasure Coast is at the center of one of the largest sea turtle nesting areas in the world, so the outcome of each nesting season is important to the species' survival, scientists say.
The season had appeared destined for a record until midseason Hurricane Irene hit with outlying waves during August. Those washed out 17 percent of the loggerhead nests and 11 percent of the green sea turtle nests in one survey area in the middle of the Treasure Coast, said Ken Gioeli, a natural resources extension agent with the St. Lucie County Cooperative Extension.
Season totals are still being tabulated for most areas along the coast. Yet from what Gioeli has seen, "We had a fairly good year."
The nesting season ends in five days and virtually all the thousands of nests laid during the season previously hatched out, said Niki Desjardin, a scientist who help monitor nesting in Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties.
Green sea turtles are the last to nest. The latest round of waves only washed out two green sea turtle nests — one each in Martin and Indian River counties — during high tides this past weekend, she said.
Gioeli's assessment is based on a count of nests from the southern part of St. Lucie County to the St. Lucie Inlet in Martin County. In that area, there were 3,478 loggerhead turtle nests, 376 leatherback turtle nests and 243 green sea turtle nests.
Loggerhead turtles are the most common. Green and loggerhead turtles are rare.
In Gioeli's survey area, leatherback nesting was at a 31-year high, surpassing last year's 248. At the same time, green sea turtle nesting declined to a normal level, after a record of 390 in 2010, Gioeli said.
Indian River County sea turtle coordinator Rick Herren said both green and loggerhead nesting was the second highest in the past seven years in the area he surveys from Wabasso Beach to the south county line.
Anyone who sees eggs on the beaches should just leave them alone, Desjardin. "If they are rolling around, they probably are not viable," she said.

Newberry springs take off site near main solar list

An area 20 miles from Newberry Springs originally identified as one of 24 prime “solar energy zones” in the western United States was taken off a plan designed to speed the development of alternative energy projects.
A study completed in 2010 named 24 different prime solar energy zones in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. The study named four in California. One of the zones was for a 23,950 acre parcel of Bureau of Land Management land near Pisgah, in an area between Ludlow and Newberry Springs on both sides of Interstate 40.
A revised study released last week removed two of the solar energy zones in California, including the Pisgah site, and reduced the size of several others, reducing the total acreage amount from about 677,000 acres to about 285,000 acres. The solar energy zones were removed because of resource conflicts or development constraints that make them inappropriate locations for prioritizing solar energy development, according to the BLM.　　
　　Calico solar plant to undergo additional environmental study
A solar energy plant proposed near Newberry Springs will have to have an additional environmental study because the developer changed the type of solar technology that will be used, the BLM announced last week.
K Road purchased the Calico Solar Project last year and decided to change the project from the solar thermal SunCatcher dishes to photovoltaic panels with the possibility of using some SunCatcher technology.
The study has not been prepared yet, but the public will have 45 days to comment on it once it is published, according to a statement from the BLM.
Construction of the Calico project is set to begin in early 2013, with two separate phases of construction. The supplemental environmental report would have to be approved by the California Energy Commission before it can begin construction on the part of the part of the project that will use the SunCatcher technology.
First Ivanpah tortoise released into wild
Biologists released a tortoise found on the Ivanpah project site into the wild for the first time in early October.
The tortoises found on the project site have been kept in pens and have been monitored closely by project biologists, according to a posting on Ivanpah’s website. The tortoises can only be released during specific times in the spring and fall when the temperature is between 65 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit.
The tortoises also have to undergo comprehensive medical assessments to make sure that the animal is healthy and does not carry a common and potentially fatal respiratory disease before they are released.
The female that was released has settled into her new home and appears happy and healthy, said BrightSource spokeswoman Kristin Hunter. It’s likely that she’ll burrow for the remainder of the winter months over the next few weeks.

Quincy Marine center care "zombie" the tortoise back to life

　　During this past weekend's snowstorm, a walker along Martha's Vineyards' Edgartown beach came across a near dead Kemp's Ridley Turtle, in a "zombie-like state" and suffering from hypothermic shock from the below freezing temperatures.
The endangered sea turtle was rescued just in time, as it was immediately taken to a wildlife sanctuary and is now safely recovering inside New England Aquarium’s Marine Animal Care Center in Quincy.
Massachusetts typically sees hundreds of these endangered turtles popping up along the coastline throughout the winter season. Beyond life threatening hypothermia, nearly all of the effected sea turtles also suffer from dehydration, malnutrition, metabolic problems and possibly even pneumonia.

　　Last year, more than 120 endangered and threatened sea turtles were brought to the Quincy Marine Care Center, for treatment and recovery until the weather permitted their return to the Ocean.
The rescued turtle, found early Sunday afternoon, will be slowly re-warmed, at a few degrees warmer each day, until it's body temperature returns to it's normal state in the low 70's.