SEBASTIAN — It was an unusual day for retired New Hampshire engineers Paul and Anne Lins: They did not hurriedly pull on their wetsuits and go in the lagoon or the ocean.
They did not spend the night with a sea turtle in a kiddy pool in their living room.
They did not throw a net from a boat to rescue an injured manatee.
And, they did not remove the head of a dead dolphin.
Instead, the Sebastian couple, who have become marine life rescuers extraordinaire, told a group of budding marine life rescuers at Sebastian Inlet State Park what it’s like to become citizen scientists, certified to rescue, tag and assist with necropsies (animal autopsies) for sea turtles, whales, dolphins and manatees.
“To be able to tell people about all of the turtles that are rescued and then returned to the sea gives us a great sense of satisfaction,” said Paul.
The Lins’ dedication to sea creatures began five years ago when they moved to the area and volunteered at Sebastian Inlet State Park, where their first challenge was removing a fish hook from a sea turtle accidentally snagged by a fisherman.
“Once we got the hook out and watched that huge turtle swim off, we were hooked ourselves,” said Paul.
After that, they read extensively about sea turtles and attended classes to get certified and permitted to rescue them up and down the Treasure Coast.
A number of nonprofits call them to be first responders when they get a call for a rescue.
With binoculars on the ready, they are expert at spotting “bubble butts” in the lagoon and Atlantic – sea turtles drifting on the surface because of injury or illness.
They named one sickly sea turtle “Cloris Leachman” because she was covered in leeches when they rescued her from the inlet.
Five months later, they cheered as they watched a healthy Cloris swim out to sea.
A few months ago, they rescued sea turtle Jessica, named after the Tiki Bar server who spotted her. Jessica is still recuperating at the Brevard Zoo.
In the back of their SUV, Anne and Paul keep their wetsuits, a boogie board that doubles as a stretcher, a kiddy pool, a scanner for locating imbedded microchips, calipers for measuring, scalpels, jumbo garbage bags and an ice chest for necropsies.
After turtles, they branched out to dolphins, whales and, most recently, manatees.
Their first dolphin, stranded off Cocoa Beach, required them to race out in their Zodiac, only to find it dead. After they assisted the marine biologist with the necropsy, he wrote in his report that he was “helped by Anne and Paul Lins, who have hearts of gold and stomachs of steel.”
“Sometimes, the smell is really strong, and there’s a lot of blood,” said Anne. “But our interest in learning as much as we can so we can help save the next one keeps us from dwelling on the gruesome part of it.”
Two years ago, they became certified to assist marine biologists and scientists with necropsies and since have become expert at taking out organs, removing heads, bread-loafing lungs (which is taking vertical slices) and checking for parasites, lesions and bacteria.
A few weeks ago, they raced north of Cocoa Beach to rescue a beached baby sperm whale, which at one-week-old, was 12-feet long and weighed 1,800 pounds.
Fifty people gathered at the water’s edge to help, but the baby whale died on the beach, and the Linses were part of the team that took it to the New Smyrna Discovery Center for a necropsy.
They pulled it off the truck with a rope around it connected to another truck and performed the necropsy in the parking lot.
They see a lot of what they call “UMEs,” (Unexplained Mortality Events) with dolphin.
Between June, 2013 and October, 2014, 1,582 dolphin died between New York and South Florida from UMEs, according to NOAA.
They also see a lot of dolphin deaths from a strain of the morbillivirus, which is related to the virus that causes distemper in dogs and measles in humans.
It’s to dolphin what ebola is to humans.
When they find a live dolphin with signs of the morbillivirus – usually lesions on the skin – they euthanize it and remove it from the water to stop the spread of the often-fatal disease.
Their dolphin studies, rescues and necropsies up and down the Treasure Coast have taught them that mother dolphin push their dead calves to the surface to breathe for up to a week after they die.
“It is part of their grieving process,” said Paul.
They have also learned that ear-bone fragments of fish in dolphin stomachs tell what lagoon dolphin prefer to eat.
“Sea trout are a big favorite here because they’re fatty and nutritious,” said Anne.
They have learned that pigmy sperm whale and pilot whales can’t be rescued because the seven-foot-deep rehab tanks don’t allow them to dive deeply enough to breathe correctly.
And, they know that pilot whales die in groups because if one is stranded the others in the pod refuse to leave it.
In the summer, they drove 10 whale skulls to the Smithsonian for advanced research by doctoral candidates around the world.
Last month, they removed a dead 800-pound male manatee from the ocean in Indian River Shores. They put a tent up on the beach at the end of Beachcomber Lane and helped with a seven-hour necropsy.
The initial findings suggested that it died of pneumonia.
“Manatee are very endangered. So, the necropsies on them are quite detailed,” said Paul.
The Linses volunteer an average of 40 hours a week – mostly for Hubbs-Sea World Research Institute in Melbourne, the FWC Stranding and Manatee Network, the Barrier Island Center/Sea Turtle Conservancy and Sebastian Inlet State Park, as well as for other nonprofits.
