Cutchogue, New York — During an early December cold snap, the New York Marine Rescue Center in Riverhead, New York, claims it assisted a record number of sea turtles who were simply stunned by the cold temperatures.
On a private path, senior biologist Jill Pryor began looking for turtles on a remote stretch of beach in Cutchogue.
“We have really long stretches of beaches so sometimes we have to walk pretty far,” Pryor shared.
They searched with laser focus for cold-stunned turtles, who, after a longer-than-usual summer, had missed Mother Nature’s cue to migrate around this time of year.
Now the temperatures had dropped too low and too quickly.
“They have pneumonia, and their shell is damaged. “Some of them have heartbeats of one beat per minute,” said Maxine Montello, executive director of the New York Marine Rescue Center.
“So we’ll touch the corner of their eye, which I’m not seeing a response, But if I touch his flipper he does have a small response there,” Pryor told me.
At the rescue center, the turtles were subjected to a five-day triage in which their temperatures were gradually brought back to normal, often with the help of medication.
