Heisenberg's principle of dead turtles

Now it's the act of looking for them that's killing them.

There have been 162 sea turtle strandings along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico between the Texas/Louisiana border and the panhandle of Florida this month, which could be triple the average number of dead turtles found on those beaches during May in the past five years, a NOAA senior scientist said today.

While necropsies -- animal autopsies -- of 156 of the turtles are not complete and the turtle corpses were not visibly oiled, the deaths seem linked to the spreading pool of Gulf of Mexico oil offshore from the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, said Steve Murawski, NOAA Fisheries director of science programs, during a teleconference with reporters.

That compares to an average stranding rate of 47 for the past five years, he said.

"The stranding rate is significantly higher than background levels," Murawski said. "I have to caution that a little bit, though, because of the increased effort of looking for turtles now, compared to before the spill."

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