Sea Turtle Rescued From North Fork Released In Hampton Bays

PECONIC, NY — Seven new sea turtles were released from Tiana Beach in Hampton Bay Monday — including three loggerheads and four Kemp's ridley turtles.

One, Pink Floyd, was found in December at Goldsmith Inlet in Peconic by a staff member of the New York Marine Rescue Center in Riverhead.

Pink Floyd, NYMRC said, is a sub-adult loggerhead sea turtle. The Goldsmith Inlet area on the North Fork is a "hot spot" for stranded turtles during the cold stun season, NYMRC. said.

NYMRC has trained staff and volunteers patroling the area and many others each winter looking for sea turtles; ideal patroling efforts occur following a high tide with prevailing north winds — sea turtles are brought in during the incoming tide by the winds and are in need of immediate attention, NYMRC said. Once found, each turtle is brought back to NYMRC’s facility in Riverhead, where treatment begins. Many of these animals have minimal responses and heart beats as low as one beat per minute.

People who find sea turtles on the beach are asked to do four things:

- Call NYMRC's 24-hour hotline at 631-369-9829 and speak to a biologist immediately.

- Move the turtle above the high tide line.
- Cover the turtle with dry seaweed.
- Mark the location with a piece of debris.

Also released Monday was Garfunkle, a juvenile Kemp’s ridley sea turtle; on December 7, a call came in from a beach walker about a small turtle she'd found at West Meadow Beach in Stony Brook — upon admittance, Garfunkel had an internal temperature of less than 2 degrees Celsius.

Over the course of five days, animal care staff slowly warmed up Garfunkel and introduced supervised swimming sessions; once the animal had reached the ideal temperature, Garfunkel was placed in a larger sea turtle pool and began being offered food, NYMRC said.

After seven months of rehabilitation, was ready "to go home," NYMRC said.

NYMRC hosted its first sea turtle release of the year at Tiana Beach in Hampton Bays last week: The four cold-stunned loggerhead sea turtles were named after the Beatles.

The transfer was one of three that NYMRC was involved in during the 2020 cold stun season. In total, NYMRC admitted 29 sea turtles from Massachusetts — the largest transfer NYMRC has received to date, the organization said on Facebook.

In addition, NYMRC responded to 49 sea turtles that stranded throughout Long Island between November and January, the group said.

Cold stunning, NYMRC said, is similar to hypothermia and occurs when sea turtles are unable to migrate to warmer water before local water temperatures drop drastically and sea turtles become "lethargic and listless" at the surface. Turtles in Massachusetts are recovered by trained patrollers from Mass Audubon and then transferred to either New England Aquarium or National Marine Life Center for triage, NYMRC said. Once they are stable, they can then be relocated to long-term rehabilitation facilities like NYMRC. In New York, NYMRC recovers sea turtles along north-facing beaches throughout Long Island, and then animals are transported back to NYMRC for immediate care.

"Many of these turtles were able to be released quickly and were flown down south for an earlier release. However, 25 sea turtles remained at NYMRC for long-term rehabilitation and all are getting closer to being released," the organization said on social media.

The survival of the sea turtles is dependent on how quickly the animals are recovered and brought to NYMRC.

"Prolonged exposure to harsh winds and declining temperatures can be fatal," NYMRC said. "Since 2017, NYMRC has continued to grow its citizen science patroling program in an effort to increase survival of sea turtles for New York."

All release candidates receive a final physical and are provided both flipper tags and personal identification tags, "critical as they allow future identification if the individual was re-sighted," NYMRC said.