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Loggerhead Sea Turtle Crushed By Vehicle At Cape Hatteras National Seashore

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A loggerhead sea turtle that came ashore at Cape Hatteras National Seashore to lay its eggs was killed when a vehicle drove over it. NPS photos.

A loggerhead sea turtle coming ashore to lay its eggs was crushed by a vehicle at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, an incident likely to ratchet up the contentious debate over how much access off-road vehicles should have at the seashore.

The incident comes as seashore officials are pulling together a final Environmental Impact Statement on a proposed management plan for ORVs driving on the seashore's beaches. Seashore officials discovered the dead turtle Thursday morning about 50 feet from the Atlantic Ocean.

"We don’t know if it happened late the night of the 23rd or early morning of the 24th," Thayer Broili, the seashore's resource management chief, said Friday morning. "It happened on Ocracoke Island, towards the southern end of the Ocracoke Island, between two of the ramps, 70 and 72. We’ve reported it to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and our rangers are doing an investigation."

Loggerhead turtles are a threatened species throughout their range under the Endangered Species Act. Adults can have a shell ranging up to 3 feet in length, and can top out at 250 pounds, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Females don't reach sexual maturity until they're 35 years old, according to the agency.

Photos of the dead turtle clearly show that the vehicle rode right over it and then apparently became high-centered, as the driver backed up in an effort to free his rig, according to Chief Broili.

"In all likelihood it was an off-road vehicle to even be there," the chief said. "And they drug it about 12 feet. It appears that they stopped. They realized that they run over something and got out and looked and ran back over it. The turtle was a pregnant female that came ashore to lay its eggs and apparently it was migrating up or down the beach. We did recover some eggs the next morning, which we have transplanted to a nest, we don’t know if they’ll survive or not.”

While three species of sea turtles -- threatened green sea turtles, endangered leatherback sea turtles, and threatened loggerhead turtles -- come ashore to nest at Cape Hatteras, to date it has been a tiny bird -- the piping plover -- that seemingly casts the greatest shadow over the seashore’s management. These grayish-white birds with a black neck band, yellow legs, and a distinctive chirp are somewhat curious in their preference for nesting habitat, as they make small bowl-like depressions in the sand to lay eggs that blend in so well they can easily be overlooked and, unfortunately, easily crushed by feet and tires and available to predators.

Unfortunately, for Cape Hatteras beach-goers, these birds nest from late spring through July, and restrictions imposed to protect the birds block some stretches of seashore from those who prefer to drive their vehicles on the beach.

Now, though, the attention has been shifted dramatically to the plight of sea turtles that come ashore to nest. The seashore's sea turtle population has been doing relatively well in recent years. Last year the 104 verified nests were far above the 43 counted just five years ago. Those 2009 nests also produced roughly 5,000 turtle hatchlings, according to the seashore's annual sea turtle report.

Despite the relative boom in turtle nesting in 2009, there was no direct connection last year between ORVs and a sea turtle's death on Cape Hatteras, although there were some minor infractions, according to the seashore's annual report.

ORV violations of turtle closures were relatively rare. There were several accounts of vehicles driving below (i.e. ocean-side of) the expanded turtle closures in the morning before any washed out signs in the intertidal zone could be replaced. It is unknown how many hatchlings, if any, were affected by these actions, either by being run over or by being stuck in tire tracks. There were no observed losses to this type of violation, although it is known that hatchlings were emerging from NO30 (a green nest) during the same night that some of these violations took place (see above)

That said, there were at least two notable exceptions to that observation:

NBH10: On the morning of July 26th, staff on turtle patrol for the Bodie Hatteras District noticed that a nest closure was “missing” in the tri-village area. After going back through the area, she found that someone had removed the four signs, string, flagging, and PVC poles that were surrounding the nest site. Two of the signs were later found 0.2 miles down the beach. One sign was found behind the primary dune line with the PVC poles and the fourth sign was never recovered. Many sets of pedestrian footprints were found over the nest site. The eggs were checked and the closure re-installed at the expanded size. As the nest had a good success, it is unlikely that this incident resulted in any harm to the nest itself.

NH33: On the morning of September 2, staff on the turtle patrol for the Hatteras South run noticed that string was down at the NH33 nest site, which was an expanded closure just north of Ramp 49. It was found that a vehicle had driven though the sting at one end of the closure, run through the filter fencing, and then exited the closure by driving through the string at the other end. It is unknown whether the vehicle was also in violation of the CD nighttime driving restriction. The filter fencing was repaired and the closure expanded. There was no observed damage to the actual nest.

Chief Broili said this week's incident is the first anyone can recall in which a vehicle killed a sea turtle. The seashore's chief ranger on Ocracoke Island has been with the Park Service for 33 years, and grew up on the island, "and he said this is the first time that he’s aware of this ever happening," said the chief.

The section of beach where the turtle was killed is closed to vehicles overnight beginning at 10 p.m. under the seashore's temporary ORV regulations.

"We have night-driving regulations and everybody is supposed to be off the beach by 10 o’clock," said Chief Broili. "We think this happened after that, but we have no way to prove it.”

The incident comes just as turtle nesting on the national seashore is ramping up, according to the chief. So far 37 or 38 nests have been counted, he said.

"Overall, the past couple years have been very good for our turtles. We still don’t know what the overall season will be," said Chief Broili, "but this one poor individual got caught in a bad situation.”

Park Service rangers are being aided by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents in investigating the matter.

“Who knows what this guy was doing," said Chief Broili. "It would seem that anybody who was driving down the beach at night with their lights on would see it. Who knows? This person could have been under the influence, young kids, relatively young people who were just ripping around not paying attention to what they were doing. Who knows? It’s not out of the realm of possibility that they did this intentionally.

"Who knows what the motives of people are?" he added. "They definitely knew that something had happened."

Comments

@ Anonymous June 26, 2010 - 3:08pm

There seems to be something missing from your post. Let me fix it for you:

"The tourists are more responsible for the destruction of the beachs and wildlife. But we don't care if the levels of visitation are sustainable, just as long as we can take their money."


I visit Cape Hatteras Seashore often. A segment of the local population think they own our Seashore. They are full of vile and hatred and have no respect or interst in wildlife and nature, except for killing fish. ... I have heard they kick Park Service staff out of businesses.

Fortunately some environmental organizations and lawyers have wrapped them around their own truck axles, totally whipped them, and got a judge to adopt a plan to protect the wildlife. Under that plan the night driving truck that killed the turtle was illegal, but you still hear them trying to defend it - saying they were probably driving without lights as if that makes it okay. Last year I heard they stomped on some turtle nests - I guess this was also because they did not have lights.

We all need to work to make this unfortunate female turtle a martyr for her species. If you are as outraged and disgusted about this as me, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. WRITE OR EMAIL the Park Service director in Washington and the supervisor at Cape Hatteras. Tell them this is ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE on a national park. Tell them to GET THE VEHICLES OFF THE BEACH. Remind them the Seashore is for all Americans and not a selfish few.

This comment was edited.-- Ed.


The focus and outcry of the enviro's should be focused on the NPS. Where is the outcry for their failure to move turtle nests laid in known overwash areas? It is sad what happened to this turtle but how does one incident lead to the need to ban all driving on the beach? To those who say folks are lazy who drive on the beach have clearly never visited the Seashore. Not everyone can spend upwards of $6000 a week to rent an oceanfront home, ORV is the only means of access for the average visitor. As for everyone who thinks folks down there are tearing a$$ on the sand with their Confederate flags waving- you are extremely ignorant.


Just a friendly reminder from the Traveler that while we certainly encourage comments, we really appreciate it when they're constructive. I think everyone -- folks on both sides -- agrees that the killing of the turtle was reprehensible and unnecessary.

Having skimmed a fishing forum frequented by more than a few surf casters from the Outer Banks, I can assure you most of them are outraged over this incident as well, and rightly fear that it will be used against them.

Hopefully, the individual(s) responsible will either come forward and acknowledge their mistake, or someone will tip authorities to the individual.

In the meantime, posting gratuitous, demeaning, and downright ugly comments won't achieve any good. And so, rather than wasting any more time trying to edit out the offending language, we'll just delete them from here on out.


Rick in Md,
The NPS relocates around 30 percent of nests from areas prone to washover and erosion.
From their reports, the early nests do well, but if tropical storms hit (w/in 500 miles as they have in the last 3-4 years) late in the season, because of the man-made dunes and erosion, no part of the beach is immune to overwash from the surge.
Incubating nests can tolerate some overwash, but hatching nests and/or pre-emergent hatchlings cannot.


Crotalus-

Have you read the report authored by Larry Hardlam and Bob Davis? It is entitled “Sea Turtle Management – A Common Sense Approach for the Cape Hatteras National Seashore Recreational Area.” I would recommend all those posted comments who say 'ORVs=Bad' read this report and direct their outrage according toward the NPS. Your comment is unfounded based on these gentlemen's research. From the report- "The insistence on natural nesting from 2000-2009 caused an inordinate loss of 46% of nests by normal Hatteras weather and wave action." There are many any damning statistics in the report regarding the current strategy. The management of CHNSRA should have considered this type of on the ground research when formulating the DEIS. As I said, the loss on one turtle to a truck is tragic, but the real tragedy is the lack of flexibility of the NPS on the entire issue.


Rick,

That "report" is nothing more than cherry-picked facts and falsehoods wrapped around a forgone conclusion - move all nests so they don't effect access with some crocodile tears thrown in for good measure.
Just one example from memory, without subjecting myself to reading it again, is the claim more nests used to be relocated to "safe areas". The truth is more nests were removed from "safe areas" - areas where they were in conflict with access.
But once hurricane season starts and storms come passing by, there's actually no such thing as a safe area.


Hardam and Davis are ORV advocates. They are not biologists. The North Carolina state sea turtle management plan developed by biologists and turtle experts says leave turtle nests in place unless they are imminently threatened. The proposal for wholesale relocation of nests has nothing to do with the welfare of turtles and everthing to do with getting inconvenient nests out of the way of ORVs. These are the same folks who recommend no protection of terns, oystercatcher and other special concern species because they are not yet endangered. If you have not written the Park Service about the tragic and unnecessary death of the turtle by an ORV on your Seashore please do so today.


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