Wednesday, June 18th
June's meeting will feature an open discussion on how to maintain your reptiles and amphibians at home as well as our care sheet program. You are welcome to bring your animals to this meeting.
Meetings start promptly at 8pm in the Alumni Room of Medaille College.
Green Sea Turtle
(Chelonia mydas)
Photo Courtesy of World Chelonia Trust
The Atlantic hawksbill sea turtle is classified as a Endangered species in New York State and the United States. It gets its name from its yellowish hooked beak. The hawksbill is the only sea turtle with overlapping carapace scales. They have two pairs of prefrontal plates between the eyes. Adult hawksbill sea turtles have a keeled shell that is amber with reddish-brown, black-brown, or yellow steaks. The plastron is whitish-yellow with some black spots. Female hawksbill sea turtles are 24 to 38 inches long and wiegh 60 to 190 pounds.
You can find hawksbill sea turtles all over the world. In the western Atlantic Ocean they can be found from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to northern Brazil. While occationally sighed in New York, they are a rare occurance.
Hawksbill sea turtles are omnivorous and eat mostly algae, soft corals, sea grasses, crustaceans, jellyfish, sponges, mollusks, and sea urchins.
Sexual maturity is reached when the hawksbill weighs about 80 pounds, though their actual age is unknown. Female hawksbills are faitful to their nesting beaches and will return to the same beaches. When attempting to nest they are easily disturbed and will often run back to the ocean without completing their clutch if statled. They will nest in two to three year cycles on remote clean beaches with some sort of plant cover. Up to four clutches of 70 to 160 eggs are laid in 15 to 19 day intervals. After about 60 days the eggs hatch and the young run for the water. The hatchlings spend their first year at sea and are rarely seen by humans. This is often called the "lost year."
The atlantic hawksbill sea turtle does not nest in New York State they can still become stranded on or near the shore. A Standing Network was created in 1980 with the cooperation of the New York State Department of Conservation, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Riverhead Foundation. If a standing is sighthed please contact the hotline at (516) 369-9829. Calling the hotline will enable the Marine Biologists at Riverhead to handle the standed or dead turtles.
Because of the high rates of sea turtle mortality in trawl nets the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued regulations requiring shrimp trawlers to have Turtle Excluder Devices (TED) on all of their nets. The TED allows turtles and other large marine animals to escape in case they accidently enter the net.
Remember that in many places it is illegal to take wildlife out of the wild without the proper permits from local, state, or federal authorities. Please do not release any captive reptiles or amphibians into the wild as this will disrupt the natural order of our environment. See our amphibian and reptile adoptions page for more information on what to do with unwanted herps.
Help further herpetology research and education by donating to the Marvin R. Aures Herpetological Grant