NECWA News Blog

Bita Bay House, Green Turtle Cay, Bahamas NECWA Member Kari Heistad visits Green Turtle Cay, Bahamas Kari Heistad recently returned from a trip to tiny island of Green Turtle Cay, Bahamas. She shared some thoughts with NECWA News. Can you tell us a little bit about the island? The island is located just off from the island of Abaco, about 115 miles east of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. You get to the island by flying into Treasure Cay on Abaco and then taking a 15 minute ferry ride to the island. Green Turtle Cay is only 3 miles long and 1/2 mile wide, so you are never out of sight of the ocean when you are on the island. The island was settled by people from New England so the architecture of the homes more closely resembles New England than typical Caribbean homes. In fact, the town on the island is called New Plymouth. There are only 500 people who live on the island so it is a close knit community. What drives the economy of the island? The island has long been the pla...

Sea Turtle Necropsies in 2012 Each spring NECWA assists Bob Prescott, Director at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, and his staff with necropsies (animal autopsies) of cold-stunned sea turtles. These are juvenile sea turtles that had washed ashore dead on the northern shores of Cape Cod. Every weekend in February, NECWA staff and interns assisted with these necropsies that are conducted in a state-of-the art necropsy facility at the Marine Mammal Center at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Last year, Wellfleet Bay and NECWA spent 3 weekends necropsying over 200 sea turtles that had stranded over the course of a few years. This season, there were fewer sea turtles to necropsy since we had caught up on the backlog created from previous years of strandings. This past Thursday, Krill was able to bring 3 carcasses to Bridgewater State University so students in Dr. Jahoda's Comparative Anatomy Class could examine them in more detail. This was a great opportunity for Dr. Jahodah...

Donation of Low Speed Wheel Saw for Ocean Sunfish Aging Research NECWA would like to thank Mark E. Goodrich, President of E. McGrath Inc., for the very generous donation of a used Low Speed Wheel Saw. NECWA was in great need of this precision saw for our ocean sunfish aging research. This saw will be used to cut the vertebrae collected from dead ocean sunfish that wash ashore on our Cape Cod beaches each fall. It is hoped that once the vertebra are cut, the bands on the centrum surface can be used to determine the age of this very large and unusual looking fish. Photo courtesy of Greg Skomal Krill and her son Jamie went to meet Mark at E. McGrath Inc. in Salem and pick up the donated saw. Mark showed them around the buildings and discussed proper operation of the saw and possible blades that would be appropriate for cutting the bones of ocean sunfish. This donation is very important to the research that NECWA is attempting and we are sharing our results with other researchers in ...