Sea turtle youth camp protects hatchlings during holiday
While most kids were lighting sparklers and firecrackers, one group planned to spend the holiday on the beach with Cuban mops and empty buckets — the tools they needed to save sea turtles.
The Sea Turtle Rescue youth group is a sleep-away camp with 30 kids ages 7 to 17 who are trained to patrol the beach and make sure hatchlings are headed the right direction and not toward traffic.
The camp at Hugh Taylor Birch State Park lasted five nights and six days, with the Fourth of July as the group’s last and probably busiest night.
In their eyes, the holiday’s loud noises and bright lights endanger the hatchlings inside nests from Deerfield to Hallandale Beach. On the holiday, the kids planned to split into three night shifts, the last ending at 5 in the morning.
Ariella Jacobson, a junior ranger, prefers the later night shift. The 10-year-old went to the Sea Turtle Rescue group last year and says she has saved hundreds of turtles.
“I think of their new baby eyeballs, everything must look so scary to them,” Jacobson said.
The group also recorded how many hatchlings made it to the sea unassisted and how many mother turtles successfully laid their eggs on the beach. The data collection coincides with the Sea Turtle Oversight Protection — or STOP — program, which logs this information between March to October for turtle nesting season.
The Sea Turtle Rescue group starts by creating a border around the nest three times with a Cuban mop. The last border should be 10 feet from the center of the nest. The youth group calls the borders “data lines.”
Each group is assigned a zone that contain multiple nests. As a result, they are able to track movement from specific nests to see if turtles left tracks. Using this method, the kids are able to approximate how many turtles hatched and how many made it to sea.
“The saddest part is when you walk miles on the beach just to hear you were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Natalie Nicholson, an 11-year-old from Pompano beach.
Once a nest shows signs of hatching, the youth group will stand or lie around the hatching nest to block beachgoers from walking through. If they see a baby turtle going the wrong direction, an adult volunteer with a permit will pick up the turtle and face it toward the beach.
“When people see us they call us the turtle people,” said Amanda Mayan, an adult volunteer. According to her, it’s important to remind beach bystanders not to use flash photography.
“The kids love telling the adults what to do, and I think it’s easier for a person to hear it coming from a child than another adult,” Mayan said.
Richard WhiteCloud and his wife, Siouxzen “Zen” WhiteCloud, are the founders of the youth group, which is in its ninth year.
“Last year we were really surprised by the extent of damage from Independence Day,” Richard WhiteCloud said. His wife recalls stories of people lighting firecrackers near the turtle nests or people placing their babies inside of one. “It gets crazy out there,” Zen WhiteCloud said.
The camp will start again in August for the peak of the hatching season, Zen WhiteCloud said. The camp in August costs $600 for six nights and seven days and includes vegan and vegetarian food, recycling seminars, yoga classes and guest speakers.
“Through the camps these kids begin to realize what big things they’re capable of,” Zen WhiteCloud said. “I always say: If you want to join, you have to love not just like sea turtles.”
For more information, go to seaturtleop.com or call 954-404-0025.
Girl killed when struck by jumping sturgeon
A 5-year-old girl has died after a sturgeon leaped into her boat along the Suwannee River in Lake City and struck her.
Wildlife officials said Jaylon Rippy died after being struck Thursday night. Her mother and 9-year-old brother were also injured and taken to a Gainesville hospital. Their condition was not known. The family is from Trenton in Gilchrist County.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said this is the first fatality recorded from a sturgeon strike on the Suwannee River.
Four people have been injured by jumping sturgeon this year, including two boaters who were taken to the hospital Friday. Colleen Harvey, 42, and her husband, Charles, 41, were struck while boating along the Santa Fe River, wildlife officials said.
The fish are known to leap more than 7 feet above the water, and many people boating on north Florida rivers have been injured by the airborne sturgeon over the years. The sturgeon have hard plates along their backs, can grow up to 8 feet long and weigh up to 200 pounds.
The fish usually return to the area in the spring, but their acrobatics often depend on the water levels. This year’s low levels are causing the sturgeon to jump more frequently than in recent years.