Posted on: 2018-04-06 10:30:02
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Turtles!
Returning turtles, protected turtles, and healing turtles.
Also 3D turtle models, a cigarette turtle with a message, and more protections for turtles.
And enough with the plastic already! And stay off the turtles (Seriously? That has to be said?).
Plus more.
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Recent Box Turtle News
No box turtle news this week.
Instead enjoy this picture from the Turtle Conservancy of a boxie with a rather unique hat. 😀
Recent U. S. Turtle News
This week we found a cool video about sea turtles & their nests. Also some good news for a few different turtle species. And a cigarette turtle with a message. Plus some interesting research, a few rescues, and more.
Celebrating turtles
Party with N.E.S.T.: That’s the Network for Endangered Sea Turtles. They’re having a party and fund raiser this Sunday, April 8. If you’re in or near Southern Shores (North Carolina), consider heading out to support their work.
April 10 is Gopher Tortoise Day! In Florida anyway. The gopher tortoise lives all over the state. Did you know gopher tortoise burrows help protect hundreds of other species? Such helpful little critters those gopher tortoises are. 💚
Don’t forget about Sea Turtle Awareness Day: It’s coming up on May 12 at Clearwater Aquarium in Clearwater Beach. There’ll be a beach cleanup, educational programs, and even games for the kids. So make it a family day!
Protecting turtles
How we can all help keep sea turtles safe: This video with a Senior Biologist from Mote Marine Laboratory shows us what happens in a sea turtle nest and discusses how we can do out part to make sure the moms can nest & the babies can get safely to the sea.
Keeping turtles out of crab traps: Specifically New York’s diamondback terrapins, too many of which drown in these traps. Sometimes by the dozens, because they’ll follow each other into the traps. But “terrapin excluder devices” on the traps can keep them out.
Good news for bog turtles: The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission recently got a donation of 25 acres of wetlands. The preferred bog turtle habitat!
A challenge to other Sanibel neighborhoods: Join Chateaux Sur Mer in sponsoring your shoreline. It’ll help the sea turtles and more!
Smokey the sea turtle reminds you to pick up your trash: Smokey is actually made out of some of that trash. Specifically cigarette butts picked up off Hilton Head Island beaches last summer.
Rod Stewart & family say What a Wonderful World … it could be for sea turtles without plastic on the beaches. His wife & young sons went out to collect shells on the beach in Palm Beach. They came home with piles of plastic waste instead.
Making it easier to be turtle friendly: Escambia County in Florida will help eligible homeowners pay for turtle friendly lighting.
Studying turtles
Dead sea turtles can talk: Not literally, of course. But studying them can help us learn more about them. This professor and her students look at their stomach contents, which can tell us about their lifestyles as well as their diets. 😲
Animated 3-D sea turtle models! Created from actual, specific sea turtles. Not a generic composite of multiple turtles. Available for use for everything from classrooms to scientific modeling and even games.
Healing Turtles
Brevard Zoo’s bees help heal sea turtles: The zoo uses the honey & honeycombs produced by its own bees as an antimicrobial salve on open wounds on the turtles’ shells. Includes video. (Florida)
Sad to see her go: Solana was a favorite at the Loggerhead Marine Life Center, but she had recovered from her weakness and anemia. So it was time to send her home, which the Center did earlier this week. Includes video. (Florida)
This turtle didn’t belong on this beach: It was a Kemp’s Ridley, and they don’t nest on Hilton Head beaches. But a few times a year, a sick or injured one washes ashore. Rescuers believe this little one will be fine.
Miscellaneous turtle stories
Red tide poisonings rising: More sick sea turtles & birds are coming into the Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife (CROW). They’ve been poisoned by a toxin made by algae that’s “blooming” along Southwest Florida’s coastline.
The thrill of spotting a rare turtle: Canada and most of the U.S. states where it lives have listed the spotted turtle as threatened or endangered. But this little guy came out to say hello one bright day recently. Includes pictures. (South Carolina)
Recent International Turtle News
Plastic just keeps making the news. That’s both a good thing (it seems to be encouraging people to use less of the stuff) and a bad thing (animals are still eating it).
But there’s still good news, as turtles get more protection (even closing a beach!), and sea turtles are returning to some beaches after years (even decades) away.
Sadly some people still haven’t gotten the message, and they insist on harassing turtles on the beach. 😡
Plastic, plastic, plastic
Turtle hatchlings & a plastic ban in Mumbai: Olive Ridley hatchlings on a newly cleaned beach [https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/vulnerable-turtles-return-home-to-shore-after-worlds-largest-volunteer-led-beach-cleanup/] in Mumbai last last month brought excitement. And proof of what’s possible without trash covering the beach. Now the state of Maharashtra has banned most plastics. This could help keep the beach, and the whole state, cleaner for turtles and people alike.
Poor baby’s been pooping plastic: The little loggerhead is lucky it’s at the Perth Zoo, where it’ll get whatever help it needs to be healthy again. But what happens when it returns to the sea, where it and all the other turtles will continue swimming in plastic. 🙁 (Australia)
Can we make 2018 the last straw? More and more people are understanding why we should just say no to plastic straws. And other single-use plastics, too.
Doing what it takes to protect the turtles
Turtle protections will continue for at least another 2 years: The turtles of Mon Repos Regional Park won’t have to worry about urban development in the area. And the Mon Repos Turtle Centre and the Conservation Park have gotten more funding to strengthen and redevelop their programs.
Beach closed to protect hawksbills: Fuwairit Beach in Qatar is closed until August so the turtles can nest in peace. If that’s what it takes, I’m all for it! And apparently so are the turtles … officials recorded the first nest on the very first day of the closure.
Roofed turtles get new breeding ground: Wildlife Trust of India is renovating a pond in North Bengal to help save the endangered turtles living there.
Miscellaneous … happy and sad news
First turtle eggs in 30 years: Local villagers say they haven’t seen turtle eggs on area beaches in that long. They were moved to a safe place & protected. (Thailand)
Yasi’s back … and her 700 babies made it to the sea! The green sea turtle last nested on Fitzroy Island in 2011, and most of her nests were destroyed that year. But late last year she came ashore 7 times to nest. Scientists protected her nests, and all hatched. 💚 (Queensland, Australia)
Rewards for spotting turtle nests: On these Indian beaches villagers & local fishermen get paid for reporting nests. And they practically throw a party for the first hatchling release of the season.
Turtle boy wants 2018 to be even bigger than 2017: 3 times bigger in fact. He has new initiatives planned & wants to raise 3x more money than last year. 💚
Happy Birthday to the Bermuda Turtle Project: It’s celebrating 50 years of saving turtles with a stamp, lecture, series, “Turtle Alert” signs, and more.
Stop sitting on the sea turtles! Another video of people harassing and trying to sit on a sea turtle appeared over the Easter weekend. This time it was a leatherback turtle, and several men were trying to stop it from going into the sea. Anyone caught can face a steep fine and up to 2 years in jail.