Web posted Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Wash-back sea turtles’ lives at risk
By BART PRICE
Staff Writer
During the past several weeks, baby sea turtles have been washing ashore in the copper-colored tide — a misfortune caused by the unusually heavy surf.

‘‘It’s just really working them over,’’ Karen Inman, president of St. Johns Wildlife Care, said of the surf. ‘‘It’s making them weak. They’re coming in emaciated. They don’t have a lot of weight on them.’’

The 2- to 4-inch hatchlings have been found on the beach, sometimes halfway buried in the sand, with red-tide algae growing on their bodies, said Inman.

In the past two weeks, nine hatchlings have been found on St. Augustine Beach, said Inman.

Several adult sea turtles have been found on Ponte Vedra Beach, according to Robert Stoll, a volunteer for the state Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Inman said the hatchlings, otherwise known as wash-backs because they failed to make it out to sea after they hatched from their eggs, will die if they can’t get to food.

‘‘These babies can’t make it unless they can get out there and eat,’’ she said.

When the tide washes the hatchlings ashore, not only do they become exhausted, but by then they’ve lost their instinct to swim some 40 miles out to the Gulf Stream or the sargassum grass, where they feed on small jellyfish, shellfish and mollusks, Stoll said.

On Monday, a boat transported the recent wash-backs to an area off the coast — a job Stoll said the Marine Research Institute does every year after winter northeasters wash hatchlings ashore.

Stoll and Inman said that if wash-backs are found, they should be placed in a container filled with moist sand.

‘‘When you get a wash-back, don’t place it in water,’’ Stoll advised.

If you do, they will try to swim and become even more tired out, and, if they’re placed in the ocean, then they may die.

Stoll said once the hatchlings are placed in sand, call Florida Marine Patrol at 1-800-DIAL-FMP.

Or, Inman said, call St. Johns Wildlife Care at 829-9210, or Evelyn Stauber, a St. Augustine Beach volunteer for St. Johns Wildlife Care, at 824-3668.