What do volunteers do? 2 types of volunteers Different levels of commitment  Regular volunteer Commits to 1 or 2 days per week from May 1 through August 31 to walk a section of beach AT DAYBREAK Reports signs of sea turtle activity  Permitted volunteer May have an assigned section of beach 1 day per week Commits to a year of training locally and by FWC Commits to being readily available to respond to calls from me

What will you learn? The Regular Volunteer will hopefully learn to:  Tell the difference between a nest and a false crawl The Permitted Volunteer will learn to  Identify different types of crawls  Identify different species  Locate eggs in a nest  Relocate eggs if necessary  Excavate a nest upon emergence  Respond to dead or injured sea turtles  Accept getting “sandy”

Turtle tracks lead volunteers to the nest site

Classic Loggerhead nest site

Loggerhead tracks are easy to identify

Classic Green nest site

Green turtle tracks have distinctive characteristics

Classic leatherback nest site

Leather back tracks are very obvious 6 ft 8 in

What will I see on the beach?

Volunteers dig to verify the presence of eggs Photo by Jennifer Kravassi

The nest is marked and monitored during incubation Eggs will incubate for 50 – 60 days

When they emerge, hopefully all the hatchlings will crawl to the water

Since almost all emergences happen at night, artificial beachfront lighting can disorient hatchlings, causing them to crawl all over the beach or landward into vegetation or local roadways

Three days after the nest emerges, volunteers will excavate the nest and take an inventory of the contents Photo by Sandra Baker-Hinton

Sometimes a turtle stops development in the egg Sometimes live hatchlings are trapped in the nest and need to be rescued Photo by Jennifer Kravassi

Live hatchlings that are trapped in the nest are collected and released to the water Photo by Jennifer Kravassi

The public is invited to our excavations Everyone gets excited when there are live hatchlings! Photo by Jennifer Kravassi Photo by Sandra Baker-Hinton

The rescued hatchlings are released and they make their way to the surf Photo by Sandra Baker-Hinton

Swim on, little hatchlings….

Our Volunteers Select a day (or days) of the week Select a section of the beach The south end is covered by ATV (lack of beach access) We frequently ride north to visit with walkers Walk that section at daybreak looking for signs of sea turtle activity the previous night

Call me! I, or one of the other permitted volunteers, will come and verify the crawl Walkers begin on May 1 and walk through August 31 Hatchlings begin to arrive in July and can continue into October Volunteers monitor existing nests as they walk and report any disturbance or vandalism

Their future is in our hands….