At an animal hospital in the Northeast United States, a biologist takes blood from a sick loggerhead sea turtle named Honey Bun. This is one of the first steps scientists must take before treating and rehabilitating the turtle so that it can be returned into the wild. Cape Cod, in the state of Massachusetts, may have some of the largest numbers of turtle strandings in the world. The number of turtles that became trapped on Cape Cod beaches has risen over the past 10 years. That information comes from the Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. This year, volunteers found 829 turtles washed up on the sand. About half of them were dead, including some that were frozen solid. That number is nearly twice what workers found in 2016 and nearly 10 times more than 2008. Some experts think the number of washed up turtles is related to climate change.
