70,000 Turtle eggs to be moved from oily beaches in relocation effort

[Kris G.]

Gulf Oil Spill: 70,000 Turtle Eggs To Be Moved From Oily Beaches In Massive Relocation Effort

PENSACOLA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- An effort to save thousands of sea turtle hatchlings from dying in the oily Gulf of Mexico will begin in the coming weeks in a desperate attempt to keep an entire generation of threatened species from vanishing.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will coordinate the plan, which calls for collecting about 70,000 turtle eggs in up to 800 nests buried in the sand across Florida Panhandle and Alabama beaches.

It's never been done on such a massive scale. But doing nothing, experts say, could lead to unprecedented deaths. There are fears the turtles would be coated in oil and poisoned by crude-soaked food.

"This is an extraordinary effort under extraordinary conditions, but if we can save some of the hatchlings, it will be worth it as opposed to losing all of them," said Chuck Underwood of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

"We have a much higher degree of certainty that if we do nothing and we allow these turtles to emerge and go into the Gulf and into the oil ... that we could in fact lose most of them, if not all of them," he added. "There's a chance of losing a whole generation."

Dozens of workers are fanned out across the coast marking turtle nests, most of them threatened loggerheads, which nest largely along Florida Panhandle and Alabama beaches.

In about 10 days, they will begin the arduous process of excavating the nests, mostly by hand. The digging must be slow and delicate - aside from making sure the shells don't crack, the eggs can't be rolled around or repositioned to protect the embryo inside.

Then the eggs will be carefully placed in specially designed Styrofoam containers, like coolers, along with sand and moisture to mimic the natural nest. The containers will then be trucked about 500 miles east to a temperature-controlled warehouse at Florida's Kennedy Space Center.

There, the eggs will remain until hatchlings emerge, and they will be placed one-by-one on Florida's east coast, where the turtles can swim oil-free into the Atlantic Ocean.

"There's a whole lot of unknowns in what we're doing," Underwood acknowledged, noting many of the hatchlings could die anyway because of the stressful moving process.

All of the sea turtles that venture into Gulf waters have already suffered because of commercial fishing and habitat loss. Endangered Kemp's ridleys, which are nesting on beaches in Mexico and Texas, have washed up by the dozens dead along Gulf beaches since the April 20 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion that has gushed up to 130 million gallons of oil into the sea.

While some have been found oiled, it remains unclear how many of them died because of it. Tests are ongoing. The Kemp's ridleys aren't in as immediate of danger because oil hasn't been washing ashore yet in their nesting places in the western Gulf. But some fear those hatchlings also could eventually make it into the crude.

Threatened loggerheads, which are currently being considered for the added protection of endangered status, also have been found oiled and dead since the spill started, along with leatherbacks and green turtles.

David Godfrey, executive director of the Gainesville, Fla.-based Sea Turtle Conservancy, agrees this plan is the only option to save as many turtles as possible.

He said if left alone, the turtles will soon begin emerging from their nests and heading straight out to sea to feed in masses of oil-soaked seaweed.

Even more unusual, in a field that typically sees division between government entities and conservationists, there is agreement on what to do. Teri Shore, program director with the California-based Sea Turtle Restoration Project, said she thought the plan was good given the circumstances.

"If those sea turtles swim out to the Gulf, they're going to face a massive oil slick which will cause them to perish or at least significantly decrease their chances of survival," she said.

Godfrey said he agreed with the strategy and called it a "pretty amazing plan" because conservationists rarely support relocating sea turtle nests. They often push for a change in human behaviors, such as dimming lights along beaches at night to avoid disorienting them.

But no one can control the oil, he noted.

"We're talking about allowing the entire year's class of hatchlings to emerge and swim to their certain doom, and are we just going to sit back and let that happen?" he said. "We just can't."

[MAK]

   I applaud this huge effort. Thank you!   

[Kris G.]

  I applaud this huge effort. Thank you!   

I think it's great too, MAK but sad that it even has to be done. 

[huddiecat]

I agree that it is sad that it has to be done, but at least it is being done...

[Donna]

I agree that it is sad that it has to be done, but at least it is being done...

So sad and so wonderful at the same time!

[Kris G.]

Unprecedented Turtle Egg Move Underway

Preparations are underway to relocate some 70,000 sea turtle eggs from nests on Northwest Florida beaches to the central-east coast of the sunshine state -- their destination: a temperature-controlled warehouse at Florida's Kennedy Space Center.

The egg relocation, described by authorities as "unprecedented," is meant to save the sea turtles, once they hatch, from currents in Northwest Florida that would likely carry the young turtles right to the Gulf spill's floating oil.

Scientists involved in the massive effort explain desperate times call for desperate measures.

"If we left the hatchlings to fend for themselves, they would face a certain death," said Robin Trindell, sea turtle management coordinator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), which is handling the effort in coordination with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as FedEx, which is handling the transportation.

"Relocating nests at any time is also very risky and would be considered only during an unprecedented disaster such as the Deepwater Horizon incident," Trindell told Discovery News.

Beginning in mid July, Trindell and her colleagues will start the painstaking work of carefully digging out an estimated 700 sea turtle nests by hand, with each nest containing approximately 100-120 eggs. The eggs will then be placed in special Styrofoam coolers containing dampened sand from the nests.

The coolers will go into what FedEx calls "Custom Critical air-ride, temperature-controlled vehicles." Those air-cushioned vehicles will transport the eggs some 500 miles east to a temperature-controlled warehouse at Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral. There, researchers will monitor the eggs until they hatch. Once the hatchlings emerge from their eggs, they will be released on a nearby central-east coast Florida beach.

Researchers emphasized that the eggs, before hatching, will not be moved until they have incubated for at least 49 days at their original Northwest Florida nest sites.

Patricia Behnke of the FWC explained that it's believed "magnetic signals, tied to location, come into the sea turtle eggs when they are in the nest." These signals may remain with the sea turtles for decades, guiding females back to their place of origin, where they too may lay their eggs.

It's also possible that the adult sea turtles will return to the east coast of Florida to nest.

"Normally scientists like to have a lot of control tests to better predict outcomes, but they do not have that time luxury now," Behnke said. "The undertaking is risky, however it's felt that the risk of doing nothing and losing the hatchlings is even higher. Such extreme measures would never be undertaken under most other circumstances."

She pointed out that many Florida sea turtles, along with other animals, such as manatees, have already perished, due to a deadly winter cold snap that hit the state earlier this year. The impact of those deaths also remains unknown. Even turtles born under normal conditions face tough odds.

"Fifty percent of the hatchlings, which are just 1 to 2 inches long, don't make it anyway, so we are afraid of losing the entire colony of sea turtles from that region," said Behnke.

Nevertheless, Trindell, Behnke and their colleagues "remain hopeful." Jeff Trandahl, executive director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, which is aiding the relocation efforts, is also hopeful that Florida's northern population of sea turtles can be saved.

"In light of the imminent threat to sea turtles, we felt it was important to help move this extraordinary project forward," Trandahl said.

He added, "Given our strong relationship with FedEx and our long-standing relationship with the federal agencies, we were able to move quickly to develop an effective plan. We'll continue to work with all parties so that this relocation offers the best hope for sea turtles' survival."

The sea turtle egg relocation project is expected to continue through October

[MAK]

   I hope and pray that this is successful.   

[Bird Crazy]

  I hope it works

[Kris G.]

In early July we brought you news of the Great Sea Turtle Relocation–an ambitious plan dreamed up by conservationists to scoop up some 70,000 sea turtle eggs from Gulf Coast beaches, to prevent the hatchlings from crawling straight into oil-fouled waters. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service noted that the plan carried considerable risks to the unborn turtles, but said it was the best chance of preventing the die-off an entire generation.

Now the update: Over the past week, the plan has gone into action, and baby turtles are now swimming free in the Atlantic Ocean. But some experts question whether the launched turtles have a chance.

On Alabama and Florida beaches workers are carefully digging up nests, marking the eggs with “this end up� symbols, and packing them in styrofoam coolers for the truck ride to a Kennedy Space Center warehouse. The eggs belong mostly to threatened loggerheads, along with some endangered green, leatherback, and Kemp’s ridley turtles.

The first batch of turtles gave the project managers cause for optimism, according to Jane A. Provancha, a contractor working in the warehouse:

On Saturday and Monday evenings, she released 56 baby turtles into the dark waters of the Atlantic and watched them swim away. Turtles from about 83% of the eggs in the first nest have emerged and swum out to sea, she said. “They looked really great. They were a little slow at first, but then they started moving around,� she said. [Los Angeles Times]

But some experts are worried that these newly released hatchlings will run into navigation trouble. Marine biologist Ken Lohmann notes that these baby turtles typically take their first swims in the Gulf of Mexico, but instead they’re being released into the Atlantic from Florida’s east coast. That may be enough to scramble their navigational systems and interfere with their normal migratory routes.

His view is backed up by evidence that suggests turtles are programmed from birth to follow a specific migratory path once in water. Indeed, turtles from different nesting sites seem to inherit different sets of navigational instructions. And that means a turtle born in the Gulf but displaced to the Atlantic coast may follow the wrong path out to the open ocean, Lohmann says.