Finding Kemp's Ridley sea turtles that wash up in Cape Cod? I recently read about them in a magazine and I ask for no other reason than it seems like an interesting subject.

I don’t at the present but I have in the past. After collecting them, with Sawsall you separate the bottom shell from the top, the only meat worth fooling with are the legs and thighs which you separate at the inner most joint, the hip in a non-exoskeleton animals.

Shinned and the claws removed, salt and peppered, the arm/legs are fried in about ¼” very hot good quality olive oil in a Creuset enameled cast iron covered brasier. 2-4 minutes per side should produce a rich golden crust covering the meat, pull the meat out drain most of the oil, add about 2-3 cups of an even mixture of medium chopped shallots and celery, cook medium heat up till thoroughly cooked and caramelized, add 3-4 large cloves of garlic chopped medium and cook until caramelized, deglaze the pan with a 3 cups of veal or mild chicken stock and 3 cups of any dry white wine, a couple bay leaves, and a good half a handful of Herbs de Provence, return the previously cooked meat portions to the pan, place in a 350F oven with the lid slightly ajar and cook for about an hour, a couple handfuls of each fingerling carrots, peeled boiling onions and mushrooms remove the lid and lay a piece of aluminum foil loosely on top of the mixture return to the over and cook until the carrots are just tender, remove the aluminum foil and carefully add 2 cups of heavy cream stirring it in carefully so as not to break things up and mash them, another 20 minutes in the oven. I serve this in a large shallow bowl with a fist full of steamed al dente` pickle grass, the French refer to that as something like “puss puller` it’s a spicy segmented plant about 8” long and 1/8” in diameter that grows in salt marshes, add a very fresh crusty baguette to soak up the gravy and it is a meal fit for a king! Diamond Backed Terrapin is a perfect substitute if no small Kemp Ridley’s can be had!

That is nearly the same as the Snapping Turtle recipe we use...cool!

In case anyone else is interested: Kemp's Ridley turtles, the most endangered of all sea turtles, are washing up on Cape Cod beaches, possibly due to excessively low water temperatures that prevent the sea creatures from functioning......
Residents are combing beaches to collect the turtles and get them to the New England Aquarium in Boston, where the turtles are placed on soft foam for about 24 hours to warm them and help them become alert. The turtles then are put into water, where they are nursed back to health......Kemp's Ridley turtles are known to breed mostly in the Gulf of Mexico.

I've heard...

1:25

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k-l1HLj9Nk

__________________
1982 300GD Carmine Red (DB3535) Cabriolet Parting Out
1990 300SEL Smoke Silver (Parting out)
1991 350SDL Blackberry Metallic (481)

"The thing is Bob, its not that I'm lazy...its that I just don't care."

No but in all seriousness, I am very familiar with this phenomena and have participated in it to the extent that I’ve often found and report turtles washed ashore on ocean side beaches mainly. For many years I fished the “back side” as it’s referred to for Stripped Bass, the real big fish season off-the-beach starts late summer and goes through till almost this time of year depending on the water temps. We fish surf casting live eels, high tides, at night. By the fall the fish have gorged all summer on sand eels and menhaden and virtually anything else they can swallow it would not be unusual on a very good night to land 800-1000 pounds of fish, sometimes 3 or 4 pushing 50 lbs. maybe even a couple pounds more and a majority 30 – 40 lbs. Not a bad night’s work at $5.00+ a pound Fulton price. The CC National Seashore has all but eliminated driving on the beach in Truro where I fished so that might mean dragging these fish a mile or more up to the parking lot to reap those rewards! That’s at least seven or eight round trips. Depending on the tide you might still be there at dawn and that’s when you would find the turtles that washed up on the high tide.

I was involved with and had a marine aquaculture business and very often found my own interests on conflict with the Mass Audubon Society particularly with the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary and it’s Director Bob Prescott, so calling them to pick up a turtle always gave me a little satisfaction that when and if he was asked about aqua culturists in general he had to admit that despite his general ill will towards them in fact many of us involved in that endeavor where more than the aquatic rapists and pillagers he preferred us to be seen as! The Audubon has a couple fundraisers each year and I always donated a couple hundred dollars worth of shellfish just to have them print my name as a contributor!

I’m also very familiar with and the Center for Coastal Studies in P-town, many of the important players up there know me well I’ve known many of them for 20+ years. Somewhere in their archives is a video of me in my dry suit along with their whale rescue numero uno Scott Landry in a Zodiac shepherding a 20’ pilot whale a half of a mile out of from a stranding way up in marsh maze of Blackfish Creek when I found it there early one morning when heading out to bring the kids to school. When we leave the house we always drive down to the marsh to see what we can see. The kids agreed f@#k school we’re saving a whale today, go get your dry suit dad!

I did aquaculture on the tidal flats where in the winter and early spring white sided dolphins often beach themselves, the aquaculture guys always help out, in fact a couple of us developed technique of excavating a depression along side the animal that they could be slide into preventing them from asphyxiation due to their unsupported body weight when laying on flat ground. Many of them still die or are euthanized because of the combined stresses of a stranding but a few can be helped off the flats and back into the bay to survive.

So as long as these creatures aren’t obvious liberals I try to help them out and teach my kids to do the same! The liberal critters we just stand there and wait for someone from the government to show up and save them!

It's very versatile and works with many species endangered or not!

A very good reason for everybody to put aside their differences, roll up their shirtsleeves and work together to support and contribute to global warming in whatever way they can, every molecule of fossil carbon helps, people! Cute little turtles who now litter the cold beaches depend on it, the hell with those polar bears!

I always find it amazing how far some sea creatures travel.

For a truly baffling long distance migration check out the Monarch butterfly, it takes multiple successive generations to complete the entire migration route. One generation travels a distance procreates and dies before its offspring are hatched, then those offspring travel another distance and do the same, repeated throughout the entire migration. There is no opportunity for the information regarding the entire migratory endeavor to be passed between generations except through some genetically coded information. Nothing is taught or learned it’s all predestined instinct.

Oh yeah ..great example. I caught some of the migration ( I'm guessing) along the shore of Lake Ontario one August. Thousands were resting or whatever on the sand.

I love turtle soup, but I wouldn't know how to make it. I'd like to try a turtle steak in Mexico out on Baja sometime, if the country ever opens for business again. Right now, it's not a good idea venturing into the country in a coach.

__________________
'06 E320 CDI
'17 Corvette Stingray Vert

Some 20-odd years ago, the neighbor, downstairs from me, had been fishing with his kids when his line got snagged and eaten by a > 20+ lbs. snapper. He dumped out the cooler and flipped the bugger back-ass over (thing didn't fit), counted the kids' fingers and noses and told them to keep it from getting loose in the truck.

He got it home and yelled for me to come on down and help him hang it butt-up in the garage rafters so he could "cut and drain it" (as he put it).

Sum-b!tch was p!55ed!!! We got it hung and he went in for the knife...I decided I did enough and with the kids being about 2cc. short of an adrenaline overdose, I figured there was enough people and craziness going on...I didn't need to be around for the snapper beheading...but I did HEAR ABOUT IT later on...

About that...

Around 1800 or so, I get a knock on the door and there's Mr. Snapper-Napper, standing in nothing more than a "wet" t-shirt and some cut-off shorts, holding a heaping pile of "Snapper-Nuggets" on his wife's fine china.

Needless to say, there was some hesitation on my part after the aforementioned gathering in the garage...thank God there weren't any dogs involved...

Anyways, I reached out and managed to pull out the "nugget" that looked to be more coating than meat and bit into it.

I was surprised! The old addage "...tastes like chicken..." couldn't have been more true, but that old snapper had a "dark meat" flavor to him and just a bit more "earthy" to boot. I had a few more and I'll be darned if it wasn't really tasty.

But, in the back of my mind, I'm sorta' glad I didn't wait around in the garage for the "deed" to be performed.

That would have been a bit too close to seeing how sausage is made, than I'd like to be.

__________________

M. G. Burg
'10 - Dakota SXT - Daily Ride / ≈ 172.5K
.'76 - 450SLC - 107.024.12 / < .89.20 K
..'77 - 280E - 123.033.12 / > 128.20 K
...'67 - El Camino - 283ci / > 207.00 K
....'75 - Yamaha - 650XS / < 21.00 K
.....'87 - G20 Sportvan / > 206.00 K
......'85 - 4WINNS 160 I.O. / 140hp
.......'74 - Honda CT70 / Real 125
.
“I didn’t really say everything I said.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~ Yogi Berra ~

Another thing I found interesting are Sea Gulls. Till recently I had no idea Niagara River/Falls was so important to the Gulls. "Some of the gulls come from as far away as Alaska and the Yukon arctic. Some migrate south as far as the Caribbean. The Bonaparte’s gull, which nests in trees in the boreal forests of the north, is found on the river in huge numbers during the migration. The Niagara can be filled with tens of thousands of this unusual species. They can be observed flocking and feeding at many spots. As many as 75% of the world’s population of Bonaparte’s gulls, the largest concentration of these gulls anywhere, come through here on their way to the Gulf of Mexico".

"Most people don’t know it, but during late November through mid-January the Niagara River straight is the setting of one of the most amazing and ecologically significant events in the natural world. It is the annual gull migration. If you are like most people, you may not think much of gulls, or “seagulls” as they are commonly labeled. But most of these migrating gulls are anything but common. Between late November and mid January each year, the Niagara River hosts as many as 19 species of gulls. By comparison, the entire continent of Australia has only 3 species. The Niagara River migration involves hundreds of thousands of individual gulls each day. Each of the species are vey different, have individual species names, and some are extremely rare. The birds are easy to observe at many locations along the Niagara." http://www.thewnytraveler.com/places-to-go-things-to-do.html