March 24, 2014 — Propelled through the water by enormous front flippers, leatherbacks are on the surface only a fraction of the time, and a Cape Codder could go through life and never see one, said Scott Landry, director of whale and sea turtle rescue programs at Provincetown's Center for Coastal Studies.
"It's almost like they are ghosts," Landry said.
A newly released study written by University of Massachusetts doctoral candidate Kara Dodge tracked 20 of those "ghosts" using specialized satellite tags and found that nearly all stayed in waters just off the Cape for the whole summer, eating jellyfish in some of the most heavily trafficked and fished waters in New England. It's not a combination that bodes well for this federally and internationally listed endangered species.
"They are in coastal areas in shallow water … where they are at a higher risk of ingesting plastics and getting hit by boats, which is a common cause of death. They face entanglement in any kind of line," Dodge said. "It's a perfect storm of hazards for these huge flippered turtles."
The past two summers have been particularly tragic for leatherbacks, with Landry's team called to assist in disentangling 37 in 2012 and 52 last summer, far above the dozen or so it typically would see.
Robert Prescott, director of Massachusetts Audubon Society's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, said the Caribbean and other countries where leatherbacks come ashore to lay eggs have been doing their part in protecting them.
"Now it's back on us. We're killing them here," Prescott said.
Two of the 20 turtles Dodge and her associates tagged died during the 2007-2010 study period. One was entangled in fishing gear and drowned, and the other died after ingesting a 3-by-1-foot sheet of plastic.
But how to protect a species that is rarely seen and whose habits are largely unknown?
Dodge and others hope this study combined with future research helps to provide data that will tell boaters, fishermen and other water users where these turtles are likely to be and how to avoid them.
"In the leatherback life history there are huge gaps in understanding," said Molly Lutcavage, of UMass Amherst's Large Pelagic Research Center in Gloucester, a study collaborator and Dodge's adviser. "This is among the first studies in foraging areas."
Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times