U.S. Plans 'Extraordinary Measures' to Rescue Turtles Along Gulf Coast

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"About 50,000 sea turtle eggs from beaches in the Florida Panhandle and Alabama will be dug up and moved to Florida's Atlantic Coast in hopes of keeping the hatchlings alive in the face of the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Without the unprecedented intervention, federal scientists say, most, if not all, the hatchlings this year would be at high risk of encountering oil and dying.

"These extraordinary measures and associated risks are not supportable under normal conditions," the federal plan says. "However, the continuing environmental disaster occurring in the Gulf of Mexico requires that we take extraordinary measures to prevent the loss of the entire 2010 cohort of hatchlings produced on Northern Gulf beaches."

The plan calls for relocating the roughly 700 sea turtle nests laid annually in the Florida Panhandle and up to 80 in Alabama. Most are loggerhead nests, but they also include some Kemp's ridley, green and leatherback turtles.

The Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission recommended that the nests be collected near the end of incubation and taken to Florida's Atlantic Coast for final incubation and release. Hatchlings begin emerging from nests in early to mid-July."

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/06/28/28greenwire-us-plans-extraordinary-measures-to-rescue-turt-39883.html

[jpak]

1. They should retain any nesting Kemp's Ridleys and keep them in clean enclosures

for as long as it takes for the surface oil plumes to dissipate.

There are only 720 nesting female Kemp's Ridelys left - if they remain in the Gulf they have a high probability of mortality.

and extinction

[flvegan]

2. Excellent move.

Glad to see this happening.