Tom Andersen's blog about Long Island Sound
Labels: Kemp's ridleys
posted by Tom Andersen at 12:11 PM
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This Fine Piece of Water - An Environmental History of Long Island Sound
This is a blog about environmental issues in the New York area in general and Long Island Sound in particular. I'm the author of "This Fine Piece of Water: An Environmental History of Long Island Sound," which came out in 2002. I wrote about the environment and other issues during almost two decades as a newspaper reporter.
Tandersen54@optonline.net
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4 Comments:
You can find the story in the recent online Block Island Times.
Compared to the Kemp's I've seen, that's a juvenile or somehow under-developed. Only about a foot long or so? An adult is about 2 feet long and weigh 50 to 100 pounds.
It's way out of its territory, too, since their mating and egg laying area is in the Gulf of Mexico. It probably got off track in the Gulf Stream and forgot to turn back, like your manatee and the now regular stranded dolphin.
Sad ending, but I can say they are making a huge comeback.
sam
Actually, Sam, the coastal waters off southern New England are part of the range of juvenile Kemp's. They get themselves into the Gulf Stream and are carried in on eddies. Some years dozens of them get caught when the temperature drops and are cold-stunned, which is how I first started hearing of them. In '85 or '86, I think, there was a big cold-stunning event on Long Island. I wrote about it here: http://tomandersenwritings.blogspot.com/2005/10/saga-of-long-island-sounds-sea-turtles.html
Actually, Sam, the coastal waters off southern New England are part of the range of juvenile Kemp's. They get themselves into the Gulf Stream and are carried in on eddies. Some years dozens of them get caught when the temperature drops and are cold-stunned, which is how I first started hearing of them. In '85 or '86, I think, there was a big cold-stunning event on Long Island. I wrote about it here: http://tomandersenwritings.blogspot.com/2005/10/saga-of-long-island-sounds-sea-turtles.html
Wow, very good run-down on the animal. I hadn't read that.
I tend to agree that scientists simply don't know what on Earth is really happening, too.
But I can see that is a sea turtle such as the Kemp's gets our of the man branches of the Gulf Stream into that Continental Slope Water, that's like going from 75 to 55 degrees in a matter of a mile.
Could it be that some Kemp's have "bonded" with Long Island, and want to best there? It could well be.
But I also think that sea turtles such as the Kemp's have an innate migration compass they use, something we don't understand either other than the birds know where to go in the winter, too.
Perhaps climate change?
On a separate note, our Whooping Cranes haven't made it back to Texas yet except for a few, where we are expecting about 257 of them. It has been too warm up in the Mid-West. Wildlife managers fear some could be lost in an extreme cold front on the way down here. I guess that's life.
sam
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