Dan's Papers - September 12, 2008

Saturday morning was balmy and hazy, with a heavy mist in the air. Two rain showers had swept through the area Friday night, and the East End was in an anxious limbo, bracing for the soon-to-arrive vestiges of Tropical Storm Hanna. It was a good day for an adventure.

The Tuesday before, we needed a picture of the Georgica jetties for an article in the paper about a recent court ruling absolving the county of responsibility for erosion at the Ireland property allegedly caused by these jetties. I had discovered an obscure path to Georgica beach - at the end of West End Road, beyond all the Dead End and "Private" signs. On this misty day, it seemed like the perfect place of mystery to show my partner and our son.

We stopped by Georgica Beach proper first. The crashing surf made conversation levels rise to a scream even in the parking lot. Seeing the double, triple waves on the beach, I said "Oh my God." "Yep," said a voice. A couple, sitting just at the entrance, was watching the spectacle from a safe distance. The scene on the beach was ominous. Visibility was maybe 50 feet. The water was coming all the way up to the dunes - just about to the fence. About a dozen people were on the beach. Our son joined in a game of tag with a father and son, splashing though the intermittent puddles made by the waves. We decided to walk west, in search of treasure. But there was not much on the beach. Other than seaweed and driftwood, we saw only a blue plastic shovel with no handle, and a clear, heart-shaped helium balloon edged in pink.

After just a few minutes we came upon a party of two women and a man of a certain age. One of the women, with the handsome face of old money - high cheek bones, silver hair, gleaming steely eyes made even more blue by her cobalt and white blouse - approached us slowly with her arms outstretched.

"If you have the energy, about 50 yards before the third jetty there is an enormous leatherback turtle. It's dead, but it would be an incredible experience for him," she said, pointing to our son. "You have about an hour before high tide."

Since we weren't even at the first jetty, we decided to drive. I knew the perfect way to get close to the third jetty: the secret path.

We ran back to the beach entrance and set off, down Apaquogue, then following West End to a gate flanked by two enormous yet whimsical statues of dogs - one scratching his ear. We scampered through the narrow, heavily forested path over the dune, coming out on the top, overlooking the raging sea, then ran down the dune.

A huge black mound about mid-beach was barely visible in the mist. Two figures stood nearby. We rushed toward it, our feet sinking a few inches into what felt like quicksand. The waves continued to blanket the beach intermittently, sending water across the sand to the edge of the dune as we sloshed along.

The turtle was at least five feet long, about four feet wide and two feet high - small for a leatherback, which is the largest and heaviest of all living turtles. They can get up to seven feet long, and 600-1600 pounds. In 1988, a 2,016-pounder washed up in Harlech Bay in Wales - it drowned after becoming entangled in fishermen's line. For this and other reasons, the leatherback has been on the endangered species list since 1970.

The turtle at Georgica was facing east. The fins had deteriorated down to the bone and skin and flesh were gone from the face, which looked as though it had been chopped off. People began to gather, marveling over the animal. We postulated with a woman dressed mostly in white, about how the turtle ended up there. More people came. A father with a girl and a boy, examining its leathery skin. "I heard the police say it's about 500 pounds," said the woman in white. "I think probably 300."

"No, at least 500," said the father.

"Do you think the seagulls got it?" asked the girl, warily. Another child wondered if it had been attacked.

On Tuesday, I spoke with Rob DiGiovanni, Riverhead Foundation Director and Senior Biologist. They had sent someone out to investigate. "The turtle was a female, probably 600-800 pounds," he said. "There was no obvious trauma, but it was severely deomposed - the GI track wasn't in tact. It probably died of old age (they live to 80 years or more), disease, or ingested debris."

Leatherbacks really have no predators, so once they pass the egg/hatchling stage and make it out to sea, adult leatherbacks are pretty much in the clear - of natural predators at least. They breed in the Caribbean, climbing onshore in Florida and other places to lay eggs (the turtles exist in at least three of the five oceans of the world).

It's after they lay their eggs that the trouble begins for these creatures, which have been around in some form since the Cretaceous period. (Leatherbacks are among the first true sea turtles that evolved over 110 million years ago.) Eggs in the nest are vulnerable to several predators, the most devastating of which are humans. Harvesting of leatherback eggs, particularly in Asia, is the main reason for the animal's decline. In Malaysia, the eggs are considered a delicacy and the turtle is almost extinct.

Once the young or adult Atlantic leatherback is in the water, it follows its main source of food - jellyfish - across the ocean. With the proliferation of jellyfish so close to shore this season, maybe the leatherback came in too close, and had a fatal encounter with a vessel. In fact, leatherbacks frequently get caught by default by commercial fishing boats. An average of 1,500 mature females were accidentally caught each year during the 1990s.

And of course, chemical and physicalpollution can be fatal to leatherbacks. Because they go after jellyfish, they also end up eating things that look like jellyfish. Like helium balloons - probably even heart-shaped ones edged in pink - which cause intestinal blockage and death.

More people had gathered around the Georgica Giant. Some were saddened by the sight. Others had gone into intellectual mode. But the tide was coming in, and with every strong wave the carcass was rocked and the smell of decay filled the air.

We said goodbye to the woman in white. "I hope this doesn't mean we're going to have a rough winter," she said. "Usually something like this is a bad omen."