by Karen Sota

​Tuesday June 14th was homecoming, or more accurately, home-going for ten rehabilitated sea turtles: one loggerhead, two Kemp’s and seven greens. Nine of these critters were victims of cold stunning, Kemp’s “Magic Potion” being the exception. His decision to choose a quick snack on a baited hook landed him in our hospital for a month.
​
​This was our first public release for the year and sea turtles can certainly draw a crowd. Despite the forecast for extreme heat and humidity it looked like nearly one-thousand people managed to make their way to the beach and hang in there until the last turtle powered through the surf.

​The smaller turtles were brought down to the shoreline in their transport tubs and then carried by our volunteers slowly up and down the exceptionally long lines seeming to enjoy the oohs and ahhs of their adoring fans and striking poses for photo ops. We’ve learned over the years that some of them are just hams when they see a camera. “Sea Glass” one of the larger juvenile greens got a ride strapped down on our special “turtle taxi” because she’s, well, kinda crazy. Our larger turtle taxi hauled loggerhead “Burnt Sienna” who tipped the scales close to one-hundred-twenty pounds  down to the surf. Once they hit the water only a sandbar close to shore slowed them down, for just a few seconds. They were gone with barely a wave of and flipper for a final goodbye.

Even though ten turtles have left the building there are still patients who are waiting for you to visit, including permanent resident and hospital ambassador “Lennie” and crowd favorite Jersey girl “Snooki.” Our senior interns are giving our regular staff a bit of a break for summer and are very enthusiastic about their twelve weeks with us. You’ll be meeting most of them during your visit and we “regulars” always hope our guests can come up with a question or two that makes them do some research or must ask one of us old-timers for help in answering. We’ve added another hour to our tour to accommodate the overwhelming request for tickets. As of now we will be open from Noon – 4 PM though July.

Nesting season on the island is in full swing with (number to come) nests at this writing. There’s no way to predict when or where a mama turtle will come ashore so if you happen to be here when she does consider yourself incredibly lucky. Please respect mom and the exhausting process by maintaining your distance and not using flashlights or flash photography to distract her. If you spot a nesting mama, or anything unusual such as an injured or stranded turtle please call our Director of Beach Operations, Terry Meyer at: 910-470-2880. If she is not available, you may call the hospital during operating hours: 910-329-0222 . We will take the information and we will send a trained volunteer to meet you to assess the situation. The State of NC hotline for stranded, sick, and injured turtles is 252-241-7367. The state number picks up 24/7. Please note that all our work with sea turtles, at the hospital and on the beach, is authorized by the NC Wildlife Resources Commission, ES Permit 22ST05.

​Again, through June and July we will be open seven days a week: Mon – Fri, Noon-4; Saturday,102, and Sunday Noon-2. Tickets MUST be purchased in advance through our website: www.seaturtlehospital.org. Select the date, time and the number of guests in your party and purchase your tickets. We limit the number of guests for each time to make the experience more enjoyable and to continue our commitment to keep you and our staff safe as we continue to respond to any changes in Covid. At this point masks are not required. Sorry, but we are not able to accommodate walk-ups for tours once we sell out for the day. Please keep in mind that summer traffic can be very heavy, especially on the weekends so plan your arrival accordingly. If you are coming only to our gift shop (not for a tour) you can enter through the single door to the left of the main entrance.​

by Karen Sota

The ladies are in the house – or actually on the beach. After a bit of a late start those turtle moms are finally here and our Topsail Turtle Project volunteers are out at dawn looking for signs of nests.

Topsail is pretty much loggerhead territory, but the past few years have seen a green (possibly more than one) take a liking to our sand. Research has shown that our northern loggerheads do not reach maturity until about thirty-five years of age, so these ladies trudging through the sand are good-sized gals, many of them tipping the scales at around three-hundred pounds. They are not built for land travel, so you can imagine the effort involved in hauling yourself through the sand on flippers to find the perfect home for your babies. Believe it or not that’s the easy part!

Once mom selects a spot, she digs out a nest about two-feet deep, using only her rear flippers.  Then she deposits her clutch of eggs, which average about 100-120 a nest. After carefully filling and packing the nest with sand she uses her powerful flippers to fling sand all around the area to disguise her work. Then it’s the long haul back to the sea where she spends a few weeks of R&R before her next trip ashore. It’s normal for these gals to lay between one and five nests over the course of the summer. Our volunteers verify, mark and record data on every nest. If the nest has been laid in a vulnerable location (below the high tide line or in a high traffic beach area) they carefully remove and relocate every egg to a safer area.

Since 2010 we have been participating in a research project at the University of Georgia (http://www.seaturtle.org/nestdb/genetics.shtml) that is tracking the nesting patterns of our northern loggerheads. One egg is harvested from each nest and the DNA and other data is recorded and analyzed. The results are quite interesting and show that sea turtles are indeed mysterious in their nesting habits. Some ladies nested several times in a small area of beach, while others were less discriminating and travelled up and down the eastern seaboard. These critters continue to surprise and amaze those of us who work with them.
Although we have numerous eyes on the beach our visitors have always played a critical part in our work. Many times we have gotten calls in the night that “there’s a turtle on the beach.” There are some important things that you can do during nesting season to keep our ladies safe.

• Do not harass a nesting turtle in any way. Not only is it illegal but you could cause her so much stress that she abandons the process and loses her eggs. Stay back, do not crowd or chase her or take flash photography. Keep pets away.

• Keep beachfront lighting to a minimum. Turtles can become disoriented by bright lights and head off in the wrong direction. With the tremendous growth on the island, especially of massive rental properties even “normal” indoor lighting at night is proving to be a huge distraction to the nesting moms. Every year there are increased instances where mamas (and hatchlings) have gone over the dunes and ended up in parking lots and on the highways.

• Do not leave heavy items (chairs, canopies, umbrellas) on the beach overnight. A turtle can become entangled in these.

• If you dig a hole do not walk away without replacing all the sand. It’s dangerous not only to turtles but to humans who can stumble into it and break a bone (it’s happened.)

Respect the nest and any instructions from our Topsail Turtle Project volunteers. They have all been trained in the proper procedures. We do encourage you to ask them any questions that you might have, however. If you spot a nesting mama, or anything unusual such as an injured or stranded turtle please call our Director of Beach Operations, Terry Meyer at: 910-470-2880. If she is not available, you may call the hospital during operating hours: 910-329-0222 . We will take the information and we will send a trained volunteer to meet you to assess the situation. The State of NC hotline for stranded, sick, and injured turtles is 252-241-7367. The state number picks up 24/7. Please note that all our work with sea turtles, at the hospital and on the beach, is authorized by the NC Wildlife Resources Commission, ES Permit 22ST05.

Through June and July we will be open seven days a week: Mon – Fri, Noon-3; Saturday,10-2 and Sunday Noon-2. Tickets MUST be purchased in advance through our website: www.seaturtlehospital.org/visit.html. Select the date, time and the number of guests in your party and purchase your tickets. We limit the number of guests for each time to make the experience more enjoyable and to continue our commitment to keep you and our staff safe as we continue to respond to any changes in Covid. At this point masks are not required. Sorry, but we are not able to accommodate walk-ups for tours once we sell out for the day. Please keep in mind that summer
traffic can be very heavy, especially on the weekends so plan your arrival accordingly. If you are coming only to our gift shop (not for a tour) you can enter through the single door to the left of the main entrance.

by Karen Sota

We talk to our turtles all the time, and they generally respond to the sound of our voices. In all honesty they’re probably only paying attention to us because they think we’re there to deliver a meal. But what can turtles really hear, especially underwater where they do most of their hearing? Since last year some of our patients have been participating in non-invasive research to find answers to that very question.

The project is being conducted by our turtle vet, Dr. Craig Harms along with Charles Muirhead PhD student (Duke) and Wendy Dow Piniak, PhD (NOAA) with funding from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM.) The ocean is a noisy place with naturally occurring sounds including storms and hurricanes. But there’s also a lot of people noise from commercial, recreational and military activity. Our proximity to Camp Lejeune has desensitized us locals to the “sounds of freedom” but how are sea turtles responding to Coast Guard boats, ordnance and low flying aircraft?

The research is designed to determine what thresholds sea turtles are most sensitive to; what’s the quietest sound they respond to at each frequency (or as a musician would call it, “pitch”). It’s important to remember that our turtles are not harmed in any way. The method used is the “Auditory Evoked Potential” (AEP) method, the same one employed to evaluate hearing in babies and non-verbal patients and involves attaching external sensors that measure brain activity. We use our surgical room for the study as it is the quietest spot in our hospital. A large tank of water is rigged with an underwater speaker and a platform where the turtle is secured then lowered and raised in the water as the sounds change. It requires some swaddling of the flippers with additional restraint of a bag for the feisty turtles. There’s quite a bit of specialized electronics involved to generate sounds and record data. The equipment is so sensitive that we have to tiptoe around the building as even the sound of a door opening and closing anywhere near the surgery can contaminate the data. Each turtle spends about an hour in the tank to get enough clean readings.

The research is ongoing. Obviously only our smaller turtles can participate and despite their reputation the Kemp’s have been the most compliant. The greens – they definitely need the bag. It’s pretty cool research and if I were a turtle I’d raise my flipper to volunteer.

Beginning in June we will be open seven days a week: Mon – Fri, Noon-3; Saturday,10-2 and Sunday Noon-2.  Tickets MUST be purchased in advance through our website: www.seaturtlehospital.org. Select the date, time and the number of guests in your party and purchase your tickets. We limit the number of guests for each time to make the experience more enjoyable and to continue our commitment to keep you and our staff safe as we work our way through Covid. At this point masks are not required. Sorry, but we are not able to accommodate walk-ups for tours once we sell out for the day. Please keep in mind that summer traffic can be especially heavy on the weekends so plan your arrival accordingly. If you are coming only to our gift shop (not for a tour) you can enter through the single door to the left of the main entrance.

​Nesting season has officially arrived, and our Topsail Turtle Project volunteers are out on the beaches before sunrise looking for signs that mama has nested. We usually see our first confirmed nest around Mother’s Day so keep your eyes peeled. If you spot anything unusual such as a stranding or nesting, please call our Director of Beach Operations, Terry Meyer at: 910-470-2880. If she is not available, you may call the hospital during operating hours: 910-329-0222 . We will take the information and we will send a trained volunteer to meet you to assess the situation. The State of NC hotline for stranded, sick, and injured turtles is 252-241-7367. The state number picks up 24/7. Please note that all our work with sea turtles, at the hospital and on the beach, is authorized by the NC Wildlife Resources Commission, ES Permit 22ST05. 

This spring, we welcomed 10 interns from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. In addition to learning about turtle care and husbandry, the students practiced their communication skills by teaching the public about sea turtles, and completed a project. One such project - a video about KBSTRRC - appears above.

In their own words, here is an introduction to the KBSTRRC Spring, 2021 student interns.

LUCY: Hi, everyone! My name is Lucy. I am currently a third-year undergraduate student at UNCW. I am majoring in Biology and minoring in Clinical Research. I have grown up spending my summers on the Gulf coast of Florida in Sanibel and Captiva Islands and have fallen in love with ocean conservation and marine life. This past summer, I worked for a marine science education program through UNCW called MarineQuest. I had the opportunity to educate middle schoolers on all things sea turtles and was able to visit KBSTRRC several times. I loved the passion and enthusiasm that everyone at the facility had for their job and knew that I wanted to get involved. I am so excited to be an intern and have the opportunity to make a difference while also gaining meaningful experiences at KBSTRRC! 

KIM: Hi, my name is Kim. I am currently a junior marine biology major at UNCW and an intern at the KBSTRRC. I am from New Jersey and came down to North Carolina for school. After I graduate, I plan on going on to graduate school to get my master's degree. I have always had such a love and passion for marine life and conservation. I am eager to expand my knowledge of sea turtle conservation and rehabilitation!
 
KELSEY: Hi, my name is Kelsey and I am originally from Leicester, Massachusetts and moved to North Carolina in 2019. Since I was a child, I have always been fascinated with wildlife and animals. I have worked in the environmental science field at nature preserves such as Massachusetts Audubon Society and have also volunteered at local animal shelters here in North Carolina. My previous experiences have led me to pursue a degree in biology as an undergraduate at UNC Wilmington. I will be graduating in the spring of 2022 with future goals to attend veterinary school to obtain my DVM. I am very excited to be working as an intern at KBSTRRC this spring and learning about the rehabilitation process of sea turtles!
 
HANNAH: My name is Hannah and I am from Jacksonville, NC. I am currently a junior at UNC-Wilmington, majoring in Marine Biology. My plan is to attend NC State College of Veterinary Medicine and earn my DVM. To gain experience I am currently working at a small animal hospital and now at KBSTRRC to gain experience in marine life. I am thankful to be involved in the KBSTRRC to allow me the opportunity to learn more about sea turtles and how to care and protect them.
 
VICTORIA: Hi! My name is Victoria, and I am a senior at UNCW. I will be graduating this summer with a degree in marine biology and a minor in oceanography. I have always been passionate about marine life and understanding how the ocean affects everything! Being able to give back to the environment and work directly with animals for their benefit is truly inspiring to me. I am honored to be an intern and be a part of such a meaningful project like KBSTRRC. I am most excited to learn about what it takes to rehabilitate the sea turtles and more about their ecology! 
 
REJANA: Hi, my name is Rejana! I am currently an undergraduate at UNC Wilmington majoring in Marine Biology with a minor in Oceanography.  I am very excited to be part of this internship opportunity as I would like to eventually have a career working at a marine mammal rehabilitation center. I am also interested in getting involved with Cetacean research and exploring the ways in which whales and dolphins visually perceive the underwater world. This is my first time working with sea turtles, so I am eager to learn all that I can to help me get one step closer to my career goals!
 
CORINNE: Hi, my name is Corinne! I am a marine biology student at UNCW and I'm so excited to be a spring intern here at the KBSTRRC. Growing up in upstate New York, I was surrounded by lakes but always had a love for the ocean and the creatures that live in it! My dream job is to work at a marine hospital on a rescue and release team, so I knew this opportunity was the perfect fit for me. I am so excited to work with our sea turtle patients and lead tours of the facility! 
 
MORGAN: Hi! My name is Morgan and I am currently a junior at UNCW majoring in Biology and minoring in Spanish. I am from Charlotte, NC and have always been interested in anything to do with animals and as I have grown up my passion has centered around the medical aspect of it. After graduating from here I am hoping to attend veterinary school to get my DVM and possibly specialize in large animal medicine. I have experience working with animals from shadowing in an animal clinic and having the opportunity to return with a short-term paid position as a vet tech. Helping out there solidified my love for veterinary medicine and fueled my interest in exploring additional animal specialties other than general practice. I felt as though I needed to branch out and that is why I am so stoked for this internship and the ability to broaden my experiences working with sea turtle rescue and rehabilitation!
 
SIERRAH: Hey everyone! My name is and I am originally from Greeley Colorado but moved to North Carolina in the summer of 2021! I originally attended school at the University of Northern Colorado for my first two years, majoring in ecology, and then before the start of my third year I transferred to the University of North Carolina- Wilmington, where I am currently getting a degree in marine biology. From the time I was a little kid I have always wanted to work with marine animals; I would always say that I wanted to work with dolphins when people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Although I have refined my response to that question now, I still have a passion for working with marine animals and after graduation I hope to be work in the rescue and rehabilitation field of marine biology. Which is why I was extremely eager to get the opportunity to intern at the KBSTRRC and get to explore more of the field that I am interested in!
 
OLIVIA: My name is Olivia, and I am currently finishing up my senior year at UNCW, although I am originally from Pennsylvania. I am studying biology with a chemistry minor. Sea turtles have been my favorite animal ever since I can remember, so I am very excited to be able to work with them each week. This is a great hands-on learning experience that is giving me valuable knowledge and experience to help me further my career in biology and conservation.

by Karen Sota

​Spring is officially here, and it’s something even sea turtles seem to recognize. In a few short weeks nesting season officially begins and there have already been sightings of loggerheads heading toward our coastal beaches. But along with all the “coming” we have a very important “going.”

Canal, a juvenile green who has been with us for almost seven years is relocating a few hours away to his forever home. Canal has been such a fixture in our hospital that most of you probably thought he was going to live with us forever. But our mission is to give every turtle the best possible life after rehabilitation. If we can’t send them back to Mother Ocean, we owe it to them to find an environment where they can live out the rest of their lives safely and well cared for. Finally – we’ve done it for Canal.
​
​But first, a little background on Canal. He was originally admitted October 15, 2015 with a boat strike injury to the backend of his carapace. It’s a fairly common injury with many admits and in most cases it’s just time to heal and then back home. But every once in awhile it results in a buoyancy problem where a turtle cannot dive and stay submerged, just popping back up to the surface usually butt-up.


​Although initially Canal seemed to be doing fine, over time we noticed that he was struggling to stay down and was devoting increased time paddling around the top of his tank. But there was also a long period where he spent extended periods scooting along the bottom of the therapy pool. Release was looking increasingly like an option. After extensive discussions with Dr. Harms, Jean and our hospital staff we decided that we should give Canal a chance to go home. On June 13, 2018 Canal was released from the beach in front of a large, cheering crowd.

On June 14th he re-stranded in Surf City, close to where he left us in what we hoped would be his second chance to put the “sea” back in sea turtle. It appears that he just didn’t have the stamina to fight the waves and make it out to deeper water. Or maybe he just missed us. Thankfully, he was unharmed and although we were disappointed we welcomed him back. Recognizing that release was not in his future the search for a new home began. His photo and CV were sent to aquariums who had what we considered suitable accommodations for one of favorite patients, but between hurricanes and Covid things just didn’t work out. Until now.

In the very near future Canal will be relocating to SEA LIFE Charlotte-Concord where they’re putting the finishing touches on his very own room with a 5,000-gallon tank, including three windows for underwater viewing. If you’re a “people turtle” like Canal this is the perfect marriage between a great sea turtle life and the opportunity to bask in the admiration of the many, many fans he’s collected over the years. Of course there are plans in the works to send Canal off in style – stay tuned for details.

During April our hospital is open to the public for tours three days a week: 11 AM – 1 PM on Fridays and Saturdays, and Noon – 2 PM on Sundays. Tickets must be purchased in advance through our website: www.seaturtlehospital.org. Select the date, time and the number of guests in your party and purchase your tickets. We limit the number of guests for each time to make the experience more enjoyable and to continue our commitment to keep you and our staff safe as we work our way through Covid. Please check the website for our current policy on masks which is based on transmission rates in our part of the state. And remember that you can come to the gift shop without going on the tour. Enter through the single door to the left of the main entrance.

Even though we’re still on alert for late arriving cold stuns it won’t be too much longer until those turtle mamas start heading toward shore. On Topsail our official start to nesting season is May 1st. If you spot anything unusual such as a stranding or nesting, please call our Director of Beach Operations, Terry Meyer at: 910-470-2880. If she is not available, you may call the hospital during operating hours: 910-329-0222. We will take the information and we will meet you to retrieve the turtle that will then be brought to us for follow-up. The State of NC hotline for stranded, sick, and injured turtles is 252-241-7367. The state number picks up 24/7. Please note that all our work with sea turtles, at the hospital and on the beach, is authorized by the NC Wildlife Resources Commission, ES Permit 22ST05.