green sea turtles

Tomorrow marks the official last day of the 2008 sea turtle nesting season. While this year's nesting data shows an increase in nesting from last year, Oceana scientists point out that the long-term data still show a serious decline in loggerhead sea turtle nesting.

Nesting data from the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge in Florida, the most important nesting habitat for loggerhead sea turtles in the United States, shows a slight rise in nesting from dismal 2007 levels. This is most likely due to the fact that female loggerhead nesting is cyclical -- they only nest every two to four years.

I’m back from Bald Head Island, NC – but fear not, there’s one last adventure to report. One of my last days down there, I drove to Topsail Island, which is a short drive up the coast, to see Jean Beasley’s famed turtle hospital (named after her daughter Karen).

Beasley, who won Animal Planet’s 2007 hero of the year award, is a teacher-turned-turtle activist whose hospital started as a single injured turtle under a tent in her backyard in the mid-‘90s.

The “hospital” is a small warehouse with about 20 pools of varying sizes and depths, each containing an injured sea turtle. Staffed by around 70 volunteers, (plus 150 helping with nesting on the beach), the hospital currently houses three species of sea turtles – loggerheads, greens, and Kemp’s ridleys.