The world according to me....

I received a call last week, from a park ranger at Ft. Macon state park: he found a dead loggerhead on the beach. I met him a little while later, and we took the measurements and did the partial necropsy together, in an area set back from the beach with controlled access. We found that this was a juvenile female, with good muscle tone, no signs of acute injury from a boat strike, and with food (mostly crabs) in her stomach and intestines. We were not able to definitively categorize the cause of death.

This is the time of year when we usually see an increase in dead turtles show up on beaches and other coastal areas. More often than not, we are not able to definitively assign a cause of death. The possibilities include cold-stunning from decreasing water temperatures, accidental capture by fisheries, some kind of acute infection or other ailment that isn't overtly distinguishable.

We also see an increase in live-stranded turtles, usually rendered lethargic by decreasing water temperatures, especially in the shallow inshore waters of Core and Pamlico Sounds. For that reason, the different rehabilitation centers and aquariums are gearing up to receive and treat these turtles, with the objective to release them next spring when the local ocean water temperature increases.