Turtle loving care
Getting a new lease on life, Hope, a green sea turtle, is carried to the ocean by two volunteers after treatment at Brevard Zoo’s Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Center. SEA TURTLE REHABILITATION CENTER
Society has devoted 40-plus years to protecting gentle ocean giants
The chance for sea turtle hatchlings such as these to reach adulthood is 1-in-10,000. JOEL COHEN
They start arriving as early as March, these ancient mariners from distant lands. They zero in on Space Coast beaches, but they are not here for the rays and the relaxation. They are here for the survival of their species.
Answering a call embedded deep within their beings, sea turtles travel thousands of miles every year to lay their eggs in the sand in Brevard County. It’s a perilous journey for both mother and offspring, but one that Mother Nature decreed a millennia ago. By the time nesting season ends, around September, 50,000-60,000 nests will have dotted the shoreline.
This is the Space Coast, but it could rightfully also take the name of Turtle Coast: Our beaches provide the largest nesting sites for sea turtles in the United States and are also considered among the top in the world.
Maria Sonnenberg
Maria is a prolific writer and proofer for Space Coast Living and an adjunct professor at Florida Institute of Technology’s Nathan M. Bisk College of Business. When not writing, teaching or traveling, she can be found waging a one-woman war against her lawn and futilely attempting to maintain order among the chaos of a pack of extremely clueless wirehair dachshunds and an angst-driven basset hound.
