Trapped by cord, rare turtle dies

A string of recent deaths of the most endangered species of sea turtle in the world continued this week off Florida’s Panhandle.

The group South Walton Turtle Watch posted photographs on its Facebook page of a Kemp’s ridley sea turtle that was found dead — trapped inside a barstool floating close to shore in the Gulf of Mexico.

The head of the turtle watch group, Sharon Maxwell, told the Northwest Florida Daily News that people found the turtle floating close to shore Monday night in Dune Allen Beach.

“Normally they would perform a necropsy, but she was too far gone. It’s really sad. There’s no way we can tell how or when she died. We hate it,” Maxwell told the newspaper.

She speculated that the barstool trapping the turtle may have fallen from a boat or was lost from a beachside restaurant.

“Poor thing, it must have been an awful death,” the turtle watch Facebook posting said.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission lists the Kemp’s ridley as “the rarest sea turtle in the world” and the most endangered. Fewer than 1,000 nesting females remain in the world, according to agency’s website.

Just last month another Kemp’s ridley was found dead, tangled in a cord attached to an abandoned, rusty beach chair on Fort Morgan Beach on the Gulf Coast of Alabama. In that case a necropsy was performed and federal officials were investigating the turtle’s death.

Also in July there was a better outcome for a Kemp’s ridley sea turtle that was found near Clearwater Beach — tangled up in fishing line and found with a balloon it had ingested. That turtle, nicknamed Donkey Kong, was brought to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium to be treated, Tampa Bay television station WFTS reported.

In southwest Florida, a red tide algae bloom has been taking a toll on all species of sea turtles. Wildlife biologists believe the bloom has killed at least 287 turtles — of various species — since October.

And in a one fatal case reported this week, red tide exposure is suspected in the death of a Kemp’s ridley turtle that was found Monday in Siesta Key, off Sarasota, WWSB television reported.