Help Protect Sea Turtles: Boaters Encouraged to Stay Alert

Mass Audubon is asking boaters to use extreme caution when on the water after fifteen dead sea turtles were found on beaches or off the coast of Cape Cod and the islands, marking an unusually grim start to the summer sea turtle feeding season.

Mass Audubon Urges Boaters to Protect Sea Turtles

We’ve experienced an unusually high number of Loggerhead Sea Turtle strandings this summer. In the seven weeks between June 17 and August 5, a total of fifteen deceased Loggerheads were found on beaches or floating in local waters. At least seven died from fatal vessel-strike wounds, but staff and authorized volunteers from Mass Audubon’s Sea Turtle Rescue and Research Program who responded to these strandings found no apparent cause of death for the others.

Karen Dourdeville, Sea Turtle Research Coordinator, reports, “Sea turtles are reptiles and need to breathe air. In the summer and early fall, when we find a deceased sea turtle with no wounds from a vessel strike, it’s most likely that the turtle had been trapped in some kind of fishing gear and drowned.”