Topsail Beach, NC - The Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center

Sea Turtle Hospital News

While our Sea Turtle Hospital Ambassador and resident Kemp’s Ridley “Lennie” was napping on his pipe I noticed that the journal he was writing in earlier in the morning was sitting on his tank. I knew March was a busy month for him, with two road trips and a visitor from overseas, and the curiosity just got the better of me: I sneaked a peak.

March 7th and 8th: Two whole days at the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher with my entourage. I’ve been invited to “Scales and Tales” before, and it just gets better and more fun every year. My accommodations were lovely: I was given a place of honor just outside the conservatory and at the entrance to the main aquarium. I got a chance to meet and greet everybody who came to the event. My people had to answer a lot of questions about me, and they did a really good job of explaining how I came to the hospital, and why I would be living there forever. David Lee of the Tortoise Reserve was there with many species of his tortoise friends - from all over the world - and I heard that some of them were as big as me! The visitors also told me that the aquarium had a new alligator, an albino. I didn’t know what albino meant, so I asked Miss Jean and she told me it was like a regular alligator except that it was white. I keep hearing my people at the hospital talking about how light my carapace is getting. I wonder if I’m an albino? I really wanted to meet that alligator but Miss Jean didn’t think it was a good idea. Maybe next year.

March 14th: I had to get up really early this morning so we could get to Raleigh in time for “Reptile & Amphibian Day” at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. I’m invited back every year so I guess I do an excellent job of representing the hospital and sea turtles all over the world. Now I don’t want to sound like a diva or anything, but there seemed to be a little confusion as to what kind of accommodations I would require. Maybe they forgot that, being a reptile and all, I’m cold-blooded. Let’s just say that the tank of water waiting for me looked really good after three hours on the road, but yikes, was it ever cold! Miss Jean explained to the museum volunteers that if I so much as put a flipper in it I’d be cold-stunned, and I wouldn’t be able to participate in the event. That was when a very nice man who worked there, named “Joey” came to my rescue with warm, salt water that he added to my tank until it reached a very comfortable temperature. I’m glad he knew how to fix it, because this is one of my very favorite road trips of the year and I really wanted to stay. It was a long day, but I had a great time. I have some ideas I want to pass along to them for next year. 

March 23rd: One of my favorite things about being an ambassador is that I get to meet a lot of people from all over the world. Now I have a new friend from China. His name is Frederick, and he lives in a town called Sanya on Hainan Island off the coast of China. He spends all of his time working with the sea turtles that swim there. We sea turtles live pretty much everywhere there’s salt water, but you’ll never see China on the travel itinerary of a Kemp’s Ridley. So until he came to visit our hospital he had never seen the likes of me, or a loggerhead. Now that’s one thing we have plenty of here – loggerheads – so I’m sure he got his fill! I would really like to visit him and meet some of the turtles that he knows, but I don’t speak any kind of Chinese at all. I asked Miss Jean if I could take some classes, but she said we have to use the money we have for our new hospital, and besides, I’m already bilingual.     

Left photo: This big Green mama turtle went way off track searching for a place to nest and got herself tangled. She was freed by the FL wildlife people and successfully made it back into the water.

Topsail Turtle Project Training Classes

May is just around the corner, and out in that vast ocean our sea turtles have begun their long journey to our coast. On May 1st our beach walkers will hit the sand, looking for early arriving turtle moms who have come ashore in search of the perfect dune to lay their nest.  

The Topsail Turtle Project has scheduled four training sessions for volunteers interested in becoming part of the sea turtle nesting/hatching program on Topsail Island. Training dates are: Tuesday (4/14) and Monday 4/20 at 1:00 PM; and Thursday 4/16 and Wednesday 4/22 at 6:30 PM. Location is the Surf City Community Center, off J.H. Batts Road. New volunteers need only attend ONE training session. Returning volunteers need not attend. For more information, contact Terry Meyer, Director of Beach Operations @ 910-470-2880.

Questions, comments or suggestions for stories
Contact me at: flippers@embarqmail.com.  This column will appear approximately every two weeks until June.