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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

Gee Crot more spinning. I'm getting dizzy.

My post never mentioned Point, camp or fish. I had making out more in mind.

As I recall the sit at ramp idea (neighborhood watch approach) came up at REG-NEG (public comment ???) but was rejected by NPS or maybe never got off the ground. Memory fades on that one. My proposal was in writing to NPS and responded to same way.

And I agree NPS has to follow their policy but it can be easily changed and should be, especially considering state law does not require such policy.


Forgot, would I sit at a ramp all night. Probably not. But I might take say a 2 - 4 hr shift much like I've done in neighborhood watches. My guess is NPS would be paranoid about such a watch taking a vigilante turn and never allow it.

Now for you Crot,

Would you sit at a ramp all night???? Or do you participate in the NCBBA and OBPA beach and highway cleanups ????


As I review the article and accompanying comments, It is apparent the number of comments from those with one sided views. It is also apparent that many of the comments are from people that feel it necessary to address areas of which they have little to no personal knowledge, little understanding of the history nor the extensive ramifications of whats involved here. It is also apparent that if you are not a Biologist then you are of no value at all. On that note, I have found many times in my life, asking an ' old timer' or 'local' about a situation can be of tremendous benefit. But it appears everyone else should go into the 'redneck basket'. It is also apparent that those leaning toward the environmentalist viewpoint ( and,forgive me, I use that term lightly ) are the only ones with feelings of sadness for the turtle. The rest of us are too cold hearted to have feelings. We don't care about anything except driving that big ol 4x4 on that beach. And, the one about ' can't the birds just have one little place they can feel safe ', Well that made me want to shoot myself. I have to be the most selfish person in the world. All the quotes from the Original Legislation, Consent Decree and National Park Service Policy.Probably, that is all that is important now because this will only be resolved in a court of law. Anyone want to venture a guess as to who is liking that. The same ones that are always the first ones there. I fear there will never again be a situation resolved by average people sitting down, looking at the situation from each others viewpoint and saying we can work this out. I believe the comments resulting from this article as well as previous articles concerning the issues at CHNSRA is convincing evidence of that.
Kurt, You have done an outstanding job in providing such diverse information on such contraversial subjects. I am not sure who has actually benefitted from this one. It has gone past the point of being objective. As hard as people, like Jimmy Salvo, try to present a fact based opinion , I fear it is in vein. For it will not be resolved based on who is right or wrong, about this or that. That is the sad part. As to the incident with the turtle, it is probably of little significance, as sad as that may sound. Because, due to the ongoing dispute, many will see it as just another log on the fire, rather than allow themselves to address the tragedy we all know it is.
I will probably distance myself from this site til Hatteras is done. Hope you understand. But I sure do hope to run into you at the OBX one day. I'm sure I will hear about it if you're coming.

Best to You,
Ron


Ron,

Stereotypes are being tossed around on both sides of this fence, unfortunately.

That said, no need to distance yourself from the Traveler. There are 391 other units of the National Park System that we try to cover and which you might find as interesting as Hatteras (aside from the vitriol)!


Giving it due thought (and calming down) You are right, of course. We'll see.
As a subnote to explain my exasperation, My wife and I have 4 remaining turtle nests from original 6 laid in the back yard in Va. Bch. Crows got 2 during laying. We are trying to protect the others til hatch. Have 2 baby rabbits from original 4 that we are trying to convince to stay in the flower beds during the day for a while longer. Fear the crows got 2 of them already, maybe not. As to the beach, I guess we're rednecks. Yes, we took it personal, just like it was intended.

You're a good guy, Stay with it.


Salvo Jimmy,
I've spent three nights (from at least 9-2 or 3) at 43 this year. Only had one vehicle come over the ramp and shine their lights on the surf, and then back up.
And no, I don't belong to or participate in NCBBA, OBPA, NCAudubon, DOW or any other groups activity that's helped to create this mess. I pick up for about 50 yards around my truck every time I go fishing. That's my part.
State listed species deserve to be able to reproduce without disturbance just as federally-listed species do. Why decimate the population until it has to be federally listed? That's short sighted.
Plus, the NPS is mandated to protect them, whether they're listed, or not.


OK Crot, good for you.

BTW Access folks have put up a reward.

http://ncbbaonline.com/news/253-june-28-1000-reward-offered-ncbba-respon...

Interesting that only further restriction has come out of AS, DOW, SELC so far.

I'm now out of here on this one as I think it has been beat enough and more time spent is a waste of either viewpoint's take on the issue.


Just had to toss this in. We just spotted all 4 ot the baby rabbits (searching with the grandkids). So all is well for another day. Silly I know. But, that's the way some of us rednecks are. Grew up hunting, a stint in the corp and look at me now. I almost feel like I should join AS and DoW. Nah, can't cause I still fish and want to use the truck to get to our favorite spots. And on top of that, I've found most all those other rednecks at the OBX to be the best friends you could ask for and believe it or not they are pretty dang smart too.

OK, I'll shut up and go away.


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