By Carol Britton Meyer

**RESCUE ATTEMPT**. The McFadden family found a Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle, the rarest – and the world’s most endangered – species of sea turtles stranded on the beach last week. Despite their best efforts, and those of the New England Aquarium, the turtle did not survive. [Photo courtesy of Joel McFadden]

While a Hull family’s efforts to save a sea turtle recently found on the bayside beach that runs along Strawberry Hill had a sad ending, they are glad they had the opportunity to help the rare creature.

While walking along that part of the beach last week, Corvid Martinez and his father, Joel, came across the 1.5-foot-long sea turtle, an endangered species, which was not moving and appeared to be lifeless.

“We made the mistake of bringing it home so it would not be destroyed,” Joel told The Hull Times. “When we arrived, our [partner/mother], Melany McFadden, who teaches oceanography [at a local college], knew to call the New England Aquarium Sea Turtle Rescue Hotline.”

Corvid, Joel, and Melany were aware of the fact that sea turtles “are very endangered from humans hunting them, ocean pollution, and entanglements in fishing and shrimp trawling gear,” she said.

The NEA Marine Animal Rescue Team vehicle arrived within 45 minutes and picked up what turned out to be a Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle, the rarest – and the world’s most endangered – species of sea turtles.

“They are also the most common to have cold-shock in the Cape Cod Bay area,” according to McFadden.

As it turned out, the sea turtle had a very weak heartbeat, but passed away overnight.

“This was both a sad experience and an amazing one to see a sea turtle up close,” McFadden said.

According to the rescue staff at the aquarium, any wild animals found on the beach should never be removed.

“In the case of turtles, they should be moved above the high tide line so they don’t get washed back out into the ocean, and then a call should be made to the hotline at 617-973-5247,” McFadden explained.

Nearly all species of sea turtle are now classified as endangered, with three of the seven existing species being critically endangered, research shows.

The Aquarium’s Sea Turtle Rescue Hotline responds to calls about distressed sea turtles from Boston and surrounding communities to the New Hampshire-Maine border.

Sea turtles in this area do not typically come ashore unless they are seriously debilitated from extreme hypothermia or dehydration, pneumonia, shell or bone fractures, or other issues, according to the New England Aquarium website.

“Other people have seen turtles washed up on the bayside of Hull as well over the past several years,” McFadden said. “Sea turtles are common in our area in the summer and fall, feeding on crabs and other animals in the warm water currents. But when the winds and weather patterns switch, the turtles can end up in water below 50 degrees, which causes their systems to shut down, and the current patterns in Cape Cod Bay and the Gulf of Maine trap them in the region.”

As their body temperatures drop, the sea turtles can’t swim and get blown by the wind into shore.

Joel said he is saddened “to see the loss of another sea turtle, whose populations are so endangered due to human activities such as fish and shrimp trawling, pollution, and the increase of strandings due to cold-shock events in our area related to turtles traveling further north into Cape Cod Bay and the Gulf of Maine, due to the warming of our oceans as a result of human activities.”

Part of the aquarium’s mission is to rehabilitate endangered sea turtles, with an average of 300 turtles treated each year. Treatment can last between two and eight months, sometimes longer. Most of the sea turtles that arrive alive at the aquarium recover and are released back into the ocean.

“For more than 100 million years, sea turtles have covered vast distances across the world’s oceans, filling a vital role in the balance of marine habitats,” according to the World Wildlife Fund website.

WWF is committed to stopping the decline of sea turtles, works for the recovery of the species, and has a symbolic Adopt a Sea Turtle program.

According to Massachusetts Audubon, it’s very important to recover stranded turtles as quickly as possible. “Do not assume a turtle is dead —turtles that appear lifeless are often still alive,” according to its website, which further notes that it’s illegal under both state and federal law to harass sea turtles or transport them without a permit.

For anyone who comes across a stranded sea turtle on the beach, the following simple steps are recommended, in addition to moving it above the high tide line:

* Never grab or hold the turtle by the head or flippers.

* Cover it with dry seaweed or wrack.

* Mark it with an obvious piece of debris, such as a buoy, driftwood, or branches.

* Call the hotline: 617-973-5247.