Rescued turtles return to ocean off Jekyll Island

Journey started in Cape Cod with aquarium staff.

The white pickup truck rolled through the space in the dunes and down to the beach just south of the Great Dunes Park pavilion on Jekyll Island, then turned around and backed up, revealing a bed full of Chiquita banana boxes.

In each box was a Kemp’s Ridley turtle, at the end of a journey that began off the coast of Massachusetts, and at the start of another about to commence in coastal Georgia waters. There were 13 turtles, all to be released into the Atlantic Ocean.

“All of the sea turtles we transported here are turtles that were cold-stunned or hypothermic up on (Cape Cod),” said Julika Wocial, senior biologist at the New England Aquarium.

Four aquarium staff and two volunteers made the long, overnight trip to Georgia this week. The Georgia Sea Turtle Center played host to the turtles after they arrived and underwent some basic observations, then turtle center staff assisted the crew from Massachusetts in getting the turtles to the beach and into the water.

“We ... drove straight down,” said Kerry McNally, also an aquarium senior biologist. “And we have three people per vehicle, so we rotate who drives and who was in the back — it was like your time to rest then. The passenger in the front is supposed to keep the driver (going).”

The effect of the trip was also specifically noted in regard to five of the turtles. Wocial said blood samples and behavioral data were logged to see how stressful longer transports are for the turtles, looking at six-hour travel, four-hour travel — and for the five turtles in this group — the 18 or so hours it took to get from metro Boston to Jekyll Island.

There would be no recording of times to the water, save for the sober scientific study of onlookers striking a casual side-bet picking which turtle would get to the water first. But the mud at low tide at the beach proved difficult, as a couple of the turtles inadvertently began digging themselves down into it instead of pushing across it. A little help was needed from staff to make it to and out into the water.

More than one person assisting the turtles ended up going into the mud almost up to their knees, which stood as a sort of badge of honor after all 13 turtles were on their way out into the ocean.

Also among the group was a turtle that was meant to go into the sea much earlier.

Wocial said it was cold stunned two years ago and supposed to be released last year, but it developed a joint condition and needed further treatment. It went to the National Marine Life Center at Buzzards Bay, Mass., to free up room for another turtle intake season at the aquarium.

“Once we released some of the turtles to other facilities and we got kind of empty, we took him back, so he is very happy to be released today, I’m sure,” Wocial said. “So we are also doing a research study, which is a stress study that we’ve been doing, I think, for three or four years now.”

McNally said depending on the time of the year and the warmth of the water, they might transport turtles as far south as Maryland, but tend to make at least one trip a year to release sea turtles back into the water off the Georgia coast.

The sea turtles ‘were cold-stunned or hypothermic up on’ Cape Cod. Julika Wocial Senior biologist at the New England Aquarium