Carolina Curious: How are North Carolina's sea turtles affected by climate change?

The official start of summer is just around the corner, and for many Piedmont residents, that means packing up the car and heading east to the North Carolina coast. Along the beaches, there’s a familiar sight: clusters of sea turtle nests, roped off with makeshift fencing.

Unfortunately, a brutal cold snap in January left hundreds of the state’s turtles cold-stunned. And a gender imbalance among new hatchlings has sparked concern among researchers. All this had WFDD’s April Laissle wondering: How is climate change affecting the state’s sea turtle population? For this edition of Carolina Curious, she traveled to a sea turtle hospital in Surf City to find the answer.

The hospital is housed in a large warehouse filled with rows of blue tanks, each holding a turtle patient. Executive Director Kathy Zagzebski guides visitors through the center, where one of the most rambunctious residents, a loggerhead named Snooki, makes a splash — literally.

“Watch out,” Zagzebski says. “She has very good aim with her rear flippers.”

Snooki is one of three species native to this part of the state — all considered either endangered or threatened. She’s in better shape than a lot of the other patients here. Many of them are admitted emaciated and unable to move, suffering from what’s known as Debilitated Turtle Syndrome.

“One of the things that we think is happening here with many of our debilitated turtles is they might be turtles that survived an initial cold-stunning event, but then didn't fully recover. So we're seeing them come in a couple months afterwards and just in really, really rough shape.”

Cold-stunning is a kind of hypothermia for sea turtles. It was extremely common this year, as temperatures hit record low levels. Zagzebski says climate change may be playing a role.

“It could be that the water is staying warmer longer, so the turtles aren't getting those temperature cues early enough to swim south.”

In the sick patient ward, she introduces Lichen, a 300-pound loggerhead admitted with Debilitated Turtle Syndrome. With her gnarled shell and thick, scaly skin, she looks like a dinosaur. That tracks — sea turtles have been around for more than 100 million years.

Lichen is showering herself under the water pump in the largest tank in the room.

“She's doing great now,” Zagzebski says. “She had her whole shell covered with algae and barnacles and thousands of sea turtle leeches, which were really gross.”

It’s a common problem. Immobile turtles often become hosts for parasites, unable to shake them off. Caregivers here scrubbed Lichen clean, gave her fluids and antibiotics. Last week, they finally got her to eat — a small victory.

“Those are pretty tough cases, but we can often turn them around.”

At the Karen Beasley Center, those turnarounds are the goal, and when a turtle is healthy enough to return to the ocean, it's a major milestone. The releases draw crowds of supporters who line the beach to cheer the animals on as they make their way back to the waves.

There’s a joy in those moments, and staff say they also feel it watching hatchlings make their first trek to the water, especially after monitoring the nests all summer. 

Those experiences keep Zagzebski going, even as the obstacles for sea turtles continue to pile up. She worries about their long-term survival in a warming world.

“Even here on Topsail Island, we have areas where there's beach washed away. Sandbags are up. Sea turtles can't nest,” she says. “And so in some cases, they're going elsewhere. They're nesting on less-than-perfect beaches. They're nesting too close to the water, or they're even dropping their eggs in the water because they can't find beach on which to nest.”

And even when turtles do manage to nest, rising temperatures have created another challenge: a gender imbalance. Sea turtles have temperature-dependent sex determination, meaning the warmth of the sand during incubation decides whether a hatchling will be male or female.

“Now, normally within the population, I think there's a slight imbalance, maybe 60-40 female to male. But any population can't survive when you have an overabundance of one sex or the other.”

In one Australian case, the ratio was even more extreme — 99% female.

Still, there are ways to help. Replacing beachfront lights with turtle-safe bulbs can guide hatchlings safely to the sea. Using turtle-safe fishing gear and properly disposing of trash makes a difference. And Zagzebski says more funding for conservation and research would go a long way.

“What we learn about a sea turtle today might inform human medicine tomorrow, and it might inform wildlife or environmental health decisions on the next day, because human health, wildlife health and ecosystem health are all interconnected.”

It’s a sentiment that the state’s top leader may share. Governor Josh Stein has designated June 9–13 Sea Turtle Week, acknowledging the major threats facing this species in his proclamation. Climate change is among them.