Turtles Heading Home! [Hardcover]

Kemp’s ridley sea turtles need help! Young readers will learn about the rescue efforts necessary to save these endangered animals largely due to climate change.

A riveting nonfiction read for 6-9-year-old animal-enthusiasts, future veterinarians, and conservationists that will motivate compassionate kids to start taking action now!

The waters around Cape Cod used to cool off gradually, signaling to sea turtles that it was time to swim south. But now, due to climate change, the water stays warm too long and cools off too quickly, making the turtles too cold to migrate.

Turtles Heading Home! follows the efforts of conservationists as they rescue the turtles, nurse them back to health, and release them into warmer waters. The operation involves hundreds of people, from the volunteers patrolling beaches, to the veterinarians in the hospital, to the pilots who fly the turtles south. All of them share the goal of helping save the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle—the most endangered sea turtle in the world.A step-by-step account of concerted efforts being made to rescue the hundreds of rare sea turtles washed ashore around Cape Cod every winter.
Successfully reviving plate-size “Kemp’s ridley sea turtles” that have been stunned by unseasonably chill waters turns out to be a fussy, complicated process. The authors explain things in careful detail as they give readers a chance to meet many of the workers who search beaches, carefully transport stranded turtles to a wildlife rehabilitation lab for treatment, and then return the survivors to the shore. How rare is the Kemp’s ridley? Astonishingly, until recently there was but one nesting site in the world, and in 1985, less than 250 females laid eggs there. Thanks to efforts like the one documented here, that population has been steadily growing since then. The aulÓé