Join me in urging passage of the Sea Turtle Rescue Assistance Act

In September, I had the good fortune to glimpse a sea turtle (the size of a dinner plate), take a gulp of air, and then disappear into white-capped waves as our sailing ship barreled along. Sea turtles are crucial to the health of ocean ecosystems. One turtle sighted during eleven days and 2,200 miles at sea may not seem like a lot of turtles. Nonetheless, that little turtle in the tempest gave me hope for both sea turtles and the ocean despite what was happening.

Sea turtles are endangered species that struggle to overcome confrontations that we have put up – including disorienting lights and beach vehicles, toxins, plastic pollution, entanglement in marine debris, harmful algal blooms, red tide events, and climate change-related cold snaps.

For turtles, cold snaps are the worst. In 2021, there was a cold snap off the Gulf Coast of Texas where more than 12,100 turtles were stranded and needed rescue. Organizations were able to save and return only 4,000 turtles to the wild. We need the government to be more proactive.

Cape Cod, the sandy peninsula jutting out of Massachusetts into the Atlantic Ocean and turning northwards like a bent arm nearly encircling Cape Cod Bay, is known as "the Deadly Bucket." It has some of the largest sea turtle strandings in the world. No one could buy plastic wading pools in Massachusetts one year because they had all gone to stranded sea turtle recovery efforts.

Since 2005, more than 220 sea turtles have been entangled in marine ropes off Massachusetts. On Cape Cod, a 420-pound leatherback turtle died from ingesting plastic. Every year, numerous leatherbacks die.

Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), and Representative Bill Keating (MA-09) have co-sponsored the bipartisan Sea Turtle Rescue Assistance Act (H.R. 7918/ S.4432) legislation to create a new grant program at the Department of Commerce to fund the rescue and recovery of sea turtles in the United States.

The Sea Turtle Rescue Assistance Act's grant program would authorize and distribute $5 million annually from 2023 until 2028. That's not a lot of money in the big scheme of things. Yet, for many green, hawksbill, Kemp's ridley, leatherback, and loggerhead sea turtles, it will be life or death.

Please take a moment to tell Senators Markey and Cornyn and Representative Keating why you are urging passage of the Sea Turtle Rescue Assistance Act.

The Ocean River Institute will organize your comments by political districts and will make sure your legislators know how important sea turtles are to their constituents – the people whom they serve.

Paddle on,

Rob