On Sunday, June 9, two Beach Haven residents received a bit of emotional closure to the harrowing effects of Superstorm Sandy. Friends Elisheva Chamblin and Jaime Baumiller said goodbye to Sandy, a 6-year-old diamondback terrapin turtle found seemingly lifeless the day after the storm blew through Long Beach Island more than seven months ago, when they released the reptile back into the bay.
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| Photo by Kelley Anne Essinger Beach Haven residents say, 'goodbye' to the terrapin before releasing her back into the bay. |
The turtle was picked up by Chamblin the day after the storm. She said she found it lying upside down in front of the Spray Beach Inn on 24th Street in Spray Beach.
“It was in shock and had sores all over. So I picked her up, and I went home quickly because I thought, ‘Any minute she will die,’” Chamblin remembered.
Uncertain of what to do, Chamblin placed Sandy in a container filled with ocean water, as well as lettuce and grapes for food, something she said she had done before with turtles she had found as a kid.
“And, probably, that’s what I had left over from the storm,” she added, chuckling.
Chamblin began referring to the turtle as Tony Jr. in memory of her family’s previous pet. She later changed the name to Sandy after determining the turtle was a girl.
Though still alive, Sandy was not eating. Chamblin called the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor looking for help. Officials told her to release the turtle back into the wild.
“We did not want to send her back even though everyone said, ‘It’s indigenous, you should not keep it,’ Chamblin recalled. “It was cold, and we knew there was so much junk now in the bay. We said, ‘She will die’ because this is when they hibernate. So we decided to keep her.”
After a couple of weeks, Sandy still was not eating. Hoping to save the turtle, Baumiller decided to take her to New Egypt High School in Plumstead, where Baumiller works as a math and science teacher. Her classroom also includes a bearded dragon, brook trout, box turtles, tadpoles and a koi fishpond.
“As a science teacher, I would not recommend taking any animal from its natural habitat,” said Baumiller. “However, it was unclear at the time how the terrapin population would be affected by Superstorm Sandy. I took it upon myself to rehabilitate the terrapin, as well as educate my students of the importance of protecting the wetlands and estuaries to ultimately conserve this unique species.”
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| Photo by Kelley Anne Essinger Chamblin demonstrates how much Sandy gas grown over the past seven months. |
Sandy was kept in the back of the classroom in a 55-gallon tank with UVA/UVB lighting and given live food to catch so she would not become dependent on humans for food; the process is known as imprinting. She began eating after a month and fed exclusively on live animals, including fish, grass shrimp and snails. The students even helped stun the animals with a flick of a finger so Sandy could feed and regain her strength.
Besides changing the water and observing the turtle, there was little personal interaction between Sandy and the students, Baumiller said.
“She was totally independent of humans, which is why I feel that she can be released back into the wild,” she said.
As residents and visitors splashed around in the bay water at the end of Taylor Avenue on Sunday, their pant legs rolled up and dripping, Chamblin and Baumiller and Baumiller’s 2-year-old daughter, Quinn, released Sandy back into the wild.
“Bye, bye,” shouted Quinn, waving to Sandy, whose head was sticking out above the rolling waves brought on by a passing boat.
“You’re going the right way, Sandy,” Chamblin chimed in.
“For me, it’s like a little bit of a closure,” Chamblin said. “The whole ordeal of the storm ended today. (Sandy) was found the first day, and we gave her life. She could have died, but she survived. Now she’s gone, and she will go on, and we will go on. We’ll see her babies,” she added, peering out toward the mainland.
— Kelley Anne Essinger
This article was published in The SandPaper.
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