Special to El Rrun-Rrun
After the Thanksgiving holiday, we will know what killed off more than 60 young sea turtles found dead over four days beginning Nov. 20, most of them on Boca Chica Beach though a few on South Padre Island.
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Will it be Mexican gillnet fishermen - as has been suspected on the U.S. side? Or will it turn out to be massive killoff as a result of chemicals that were carried by strong winds after a pressurization failure with SpaceX's Mk1 Starship prototype on Nov. 20, the same day the first dead turtles were found.
Federal and state authorities were notified immediately, he said. Late Sunday, a patrol from the U.S. Coast Guard SPI station discovered an abandoned gillnet — from a Mexican lancha fishing U.S. waters illegally — 200 yards north of the mouth of the Rio Grande, according to a USCG official.
Of eight turtles found entangled in the net, five were dead, according to the official, who said USCG is conducting daily patrols in the area since the discovery. He discounted that the SpaceX failure, which resulted in the release of a large quantity of vapor and cryogenic liquid, was likely to have caused the turtle deaths.
George said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has jurisdiction over sea turtles in the Gulf, is sending its top NOAA Fisheries veterinarian/sea turtle pathologist, Dr. Brian Stacy, to perform necropsies on the turtles to confirm cause of death. Stacy has necropsied thousands of sea turtles, George said.
However, because of Thanksgiving the necropsies might not be performed until next week, George said, noting that the turtles have been frozen to preserve the evidence. The necropsies can reveal causes of death related to chemicals, explosions, drowning (in a gillnet for instance) and other factors, he said.
“Given that the animal is fresh dead and frozen immediately, they’ll get a very good indicator as to what happened,” George said.
Green sea turtles are protected as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
SpaceX’s first full-scale Starship prototype – Mk1 – experienced a failure at its Boca Chica test site downwind from the beach. in southern Texas. The failure occurred late in the afternoon on Wednesday, midway through a test of the vehicle’s propellant tanks
The Mk1 Starship's first cyrogenic loading test, involved filling the methane and oxygen tanks with a cryogenic liquid.
During the test, the top bulkhead of the vehicle ruptured and was ejected away from the site, followed by a large cloud of vapors and cryogenic liquid from the tank.
The top bulkhead was seen landing nearby, but its precise location is unknown.
The bottom tank bulkhead appeared to fail as well. A second cloud of vapor appeared out of the base of the vehicle at the same time that the top ruptured – signaling that the entire internal tank structure may have failed.
After the Thanksgiving holiday, we will know what killed off more than 60 young sea turtles found dead over four days beginning Nov. 20, most of them on Boca Chica Beach though a few on South Padre Island.
Will it be Mexican gillnet fishermen - as has been suspected on the U.S. side? Or will it turn out to be massive killoff as a result of chemicals that were carried by strong winds after a pressurization failure with SpaceX's Mk1 Starship prototype on Nov. 20, the same day the first dead turtles were found. That incident, which resulted in the release of a large quantity of vapor and cryogenic liquid has been suspected to have caused some deaths, according to commenters on the Sea Turtle Inc. website.
More than 60 young green sea turtles have been found dead over four days beginning Nov. 20, most of them on Boca Chica Beach though a few on South Padre Island.
![Image result for dead sea turtles, boca chica beach]()
The dead turtles likely were between 2 and 6 years old, Jeff George, executive director of Sea Turtle Inc., told the Brownsville Herald.
The dead turtles likely were between 2 and 6 years old, Jeff George, executive director of Sea Turtle Inc., told the Brownsville Herald.George said 8 freshly dead turtles were found Nov. 24 alone, for a total of 63 so far. Radio reports and social media posts from Mexico, meanwhile, indicate that many more were found washed up south of the Rio Grande, he said.
Federal and state authorities were notified immediately, he said. Late Sunday, a patrol from the U.S. Coast Guard SPI station discovered an abandoned gillnet — from a Mexican lancha fishing U.S. waters illegally — 200 yards north of the mouth of the Rio Grande, according to a USCG official.
Of eight turtles found entangled in the net, five were dead, according to the official, who said USCG is conducting daily patrols in the area since the discovery. He discounted that the SpaceX failure, which resulted in the release of a large quantity of vapor and cryogenic liquid, was likely to have caused the turtle deaths.
George said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has jurisdiction over sea turtles in the Gulf, is sending its top NOAA Fisheries veterinarian/sea turtle pathologist, Dr. Brian Stacy, to perform necropsies on the turtles to confirm cause of death. Stacy has necropsied thousands of sea turtles, George said.
However, because of Thanksgiving the necropsies might not be performed until next week, George said, noting that the turtles have been frozen to preserve the evidence. The necropsies can reveal causes of death related to chemicals, explosions, drowning (in a gillnet for instance) and other factors, he said.
“Given that the animal is fresh dead and frozen immediately, they’ll get a very good indicator as to what happened,” George said.
Green sea turtles are protected as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
SpaceX’s first full-scale Starship prototype – Mk1 – experienced a failure at its Boca Chica test site downwind from the beach. in southern Texas. The failure occurred late in the afternoon on Wednesday, midway through a test of the vehicle’s propellant tanks
The Mk1 Starship's first cyrogenic loading test, involved filling the methane and oxygen tanks with a cryogenic liquid.
During the test, the top bulkhead of the vehicle ruptured and was ejected away from the site, followed by a large cloud of vapors and cryogenic liquid from the tank.
The top bulkhead was seen landing nearby, but its precise location is unknown.
The bottom tank bulkhead appeared to fail as well. A second cloud of vapor appeared out of the base of the vehicle at the same time that the top ruptured – signaling that the entire internal tank structure may have failed.