The New England Aquarium has taken in over 200 hypothermic or cold-stunned sea turtles that have washed up on Massachusetts shores this “stranding season,” Aquarium officials said.

“This sea turtle stranding season has gotten off to a later start than the past few years,” said Aquarium Director of Rescue and Rehabilitation Adam Kennedy. “Whether it is 1 or 100 turtles in a given day, our team at the New England Aquarium is ready to help give these turtles the best shot of being returned home.”

Turtles began to strand on Cape Cod in early November, and so far this year, Aquarium staffers have treated 189 critically endangered Kemp’s ridley turtles, 19 green turtles, and six loggerheads. Numbers are “ramping up,” Kennedy said, with 134 taken in in the last five days.

Stranding season occurs annually from fall to early winter as many sea turtles fail to escape Cape Cod Bay before becoming hypothermic due to falling temperatures and wind patterns. Staff and volunteers from the Massachusetts Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary walk along the beaches every year to rescue and treat these turtles.

The Aquarium noted five of the turtles unusually washed up in Hull and Hingham this year, potentially indicating sea turtles in the Bay are spreading out.

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Many of the turtles suffer dehydration, pneumonia and injuries like fractures of their shells, the Aquarium said. The Aquarium works in partnership with the NOAA Fisheries Service, non-profit organization Turtles Fly Too and others to treat all the animals.

The turtles may be treated for weeks to over a year before being released back into the ocean, the Aquarium said.

Stranded sea turtles are treated at the New England Aquarium’s Sea Turtle Hospital. (Nancy Lane/Boston Herald)

A little care is helping these stranded turtles. (Nancy Lane/Boston Herald)