Here's why you won't find sea turtles at Hampton Beach

Do we have sea turtles on Hampton Beach? That is an interesting question; my patent response is no.

Sea turtles are normally found in warmer water. But that is not the whole story. NOAA lists seven species of sea turtles that can be found in the Gulf of Maine. I found this interesting as I have never seen one here.

After speaking with a few of the commercial fishermen, I have corrected my response to “We have occasional sea turtle visitors here in the Gulf of Maine. They are here to forage for food and normally stay in coastal waters.”

To be precise, no, we do not have sea turtles on Hampton Beach. Most of the turtles would be hunting for food and they wouldn’t find what they are looking for among the bathers at Hampton. Let’s investigate what we might encounter if we took a boat out into deeper water.

There appear to be four species of sea turtle that are regular visitors to the Gulf of Maine although most are found in Cape Cod Bay and fewer can be seen in the northern reaches of the Gulf. These are the loggerhead, green, Kemp’s Ridley, and the leatherback turtles. All of these turtles nest in southern climes on sandy beaches laying several clutches during the nesting season, with an average of 100 eggs per nest. They return to the general area where they hatched to lay their eggs. Unlike the other turtles, the Kemp’s Ridley nests during the day and in mass. That is, the females gather off the beach in the water and go ashore to build their nests together. Scientists believe that this is a behavior that has evolved to ensure the maximum number of young make it to the water after hatching protecting more from predation.

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The other three nest during the night, and after hatching, the young orient to the darkest shadow on the beach and begin crawling toward the light which should be the open ocean.

Unfortunately, humans have disrupted this behavior by allowing artificial light to shine during nesting.

A light from a house or car will disrupt the natural instincts of the young turtles and they will inadvertently crawl away from the ocean. Therefore, on nesting beaches in the U.S. most communities prohibit artificial lights on the beach during nesting season.

Again, according to the NOAA website, the green sea turtle, which is the largest of the hard-shelled turtles, have tiny heads.

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Sea turtles are marine reptiles, have scales and breath air. Greens reach between 3 to 4 feet and weigh in at 200 to 350 pounds when adult.

Their name is derived from their diet of grasses and algae (seaweeds).

Leatherbacks are the largest of the sea turtles weighing in at 750 to 1,000 pounds and between 5 to 6 feet in length. They are the only sea turtles that have no scales or hard shell.

Their shell consists of small bones covered with a rubbery thick layer of skin. Their front flippers are much longer than the other turtles and pointed, allowing them to navigate huge distances. They have been known to swim over 3,000 miles between their nesting and foraging grounds. During feeding, they can dive over 4,000 feet and hold their breath for over 80 minutes. These animals have not changed or evolved their biological structure since before the age of the dinosaurs! They must be doing something right!

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Loggerhead turtles weigh in at 250 to 350 pounds and between 2.5 to 3.5 feet in length.  They have a huge head with a strong bite allowing the adults to feed on whelks and crustaceans by crushing their prey. After they hatch, loggerheads go out to the open ocean and forage on floating material which unfortunately can include lots of floating plastics. After 7 to 15 years, they return to coastal waters where they forage for bottom-dwelling invertebrates.

Kemp’s Ridley turtles were named after a fisherman from Key West in 1906. These animals normally range up through New England from their nesting grounds in the Gulf of Mexico. The juveniles float amongst the sargasso weed in the Gulf Stream for 1 to 2 years until they reach about 8 inches then they migrate to the nearshore where they feed on mainly crabs. They are the smallest of the sea turtles weighing in at 70 to 100 pounds and about 2 feet in length. Their upper body is brownish with a yellowish under belly and one claw on the front flippers, one to two claws on the back flippers. Their bill is hooked, handy when crunching down crabs.

Alex, one of the biologists at the Oceanarium, has just graduated from UNH and did a nice project on the influence of sand temperature on the sex of incubating sea turtles.  Kudos to Alex. If you would like to see her poster, please stop by the Oceanarium.

So, don’t be expecting to see a sea turtle here anytime soon. Your best bet would be in Cape Cod Bay, which is the southern range of the Gulf of Maine.

Unfortunately, during the fall a number of sea turtles end up caught in the cooling waters of the Gulf of Maine down in Cape Cod Bay and become hypothermic. Many are rescued and rehabilitated and returned to warmer climes in time for nesting season.

Of course, with the surface water of the Gulf warming faster than any other marine body, we may be seeing more of these fascinating animals in the future. Keep your eyes peeled!

Ellen Goethel is a marine biologist and the owner of Explore the Ocean World at 367 Ocean Blvd. at Hampton Beach.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Are there sea turtles at Hampton Beach NH?