A second cold-stunned Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle is on the mend after it was rescued on the Chappaquiddick side of Norton Point Beach during Saturday’s northeaster.
Benton Wesley hesitated, but once Frank Hardy got the feel of sand beneath his flippers, he made a beeline for the surf, soon disappearing under a crashing wave on the Vineyard’s south shore.
About 10 months after the two rare Kemp’s Ridley turtles washed up on a Cape Cod beach in a hypothermic state, they were returned to the waves off Long Point in West Tisbury Wednesday.
Weathermen are not the only ones confused by this year’s unseasonably warm winter weather. Off the Cape and Islands, this winter more than 100 sea turtles, tempted to linger in the balmy waters, have met a cold and sandy end.
“This year I’ve seen more turtle strandings than I’ve ever seen in my 12 years here,” Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary director Suzan Bellincampi said on Thursday.
