On behalf of the GSTC Staff, we hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! This weekend, the GSTC Education Staff and Volunteers participated in Jekyll Island’s Christmas Tree Lighting Festival. We had a variety of preserved sea turtle specimens for everyone to see and had a craft table for kids. We hope everyone had as much fun as we did!

The kid’s craft, ‘Recycled Art: Sea Turtle Ornaments‘ provided a preview to December’s Craft of the Month which will be available every day in the Exibit Gallery through December! So come on by the GSTC and make a sea turtle ornament for YOUR tree! (November’s Craft is the ‘Paperplate Turtle’ and will be available at the Center for the remainder of the month!)

Thanks to the Volunteers who helped out: Leigh Anne Harden, Rebecca Taylor, and Griffin Eckert as well as our Education Intern: Sarah Mathias…we couldn’t do these events (or be as successful) without you!!!

(L to R: Griffin Eckert, Sarah Mathias, Stefanie Ouellette, Leigh Anne Harden, Rebecca Taylor, Alicia Marin)

Sincerely,
Stefanie Ouellette, Education and Field Coordinator
Alicia Marin, Public Outreach Educator

Bev recovered from her illness much more quickly than expected so we were able to release her this fall as the water in the Gulf of Mexico (where Bev came from) stayed warm enough for her to be released safely. We rushed to get her transmitter and luckily our colleague Mark Dodd from GA DNR had everything on hand that we needed to apply it to Bev’s carapace. Bev’s satellite transmitter was applied at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Sunday, November 18 and she was driven to a beach on the Florida panhandle, west of Panama City Beach on Monday morning (see next post). The photos below show the transmitter being attached, a flipper tag being attached (she also received a PIT tag) and Bev swimming in her rehab tank sporting her new hardware.

The Georgia Sea Turtle Center hosted our first birthday party on November 10, 2007! We are honored that Georgia Waters (pictured in purple), an aspiring sea turtle biologist, chose the GSTC as the place to celebrate her 5th birthday! Georgia chose the “Nifty Nesters” program to be the theme of her party.

The party first began with a brief presentation about the nesting behavior of sea turtles, complete with each child being transformed into a sea turtle, using real specimens. Then, our little “sea turtle biologists” preformed a nest excavation in search of sea turtle eggs (ping pong balls). We also created our own sea turtle nests and later played “put-the-hatchling-in-the-nest” (a sea turtle themed version of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey).

Before a tour of the GSTC and visit to the hospital, it was time for cake and presents. In addition to a plush sea turtle from the GSTC staff, Georgia received lots of great gifts and had the most fabulous sea turtle cake we’ve ever seen! A turtle-riffic time was had by all, and the GSTC would like to thank Georgia, her friends and her family for allowing us to help Georgia celebrate her 5th birthday.

Are YOU looking for a way to celebrate your child’s birthday? Bring them to the Georgia Sea Turtle Center! We offer 3 birthday packages and a variety of themes to choose from! It’s a great way to celebrate a birthday AND help sea turtles! Cost varies by package and includes general admission. For more information, please visit our website or call the GSTC Education Team at (912)635-4076.

Alicia Marin, Public Outreach Educator
Sarah Mathias, Education Intern

Are you looking for something fun and educational that the whole family can enjoy? Then come on down to the Georgia Sea Turtle Center. Every Saturday at 10:30am and 1:30pm join the fun as we read turtle inspired stories and make creative crafts! There’s a new book and craft every month! This month we’ll be reading My Little Book of Painted Turtles and making turtle shakers! Activities are free with admission! So come on down for an educational and fun journey through the lives of sea turtles! And don’t forget to check out our patients!

~Sarah Mathias, Education Intern

With the growing excitement for, and the successful release of Bev this afternoon some of you may be wondering what is happening with the rest of our sea turtle patients here at the sea turtle center.

Griffin is our newest sea turtle patient here at the center. He originally stranded off Daytona beach and was taken to the Volusia County Marine Science Center. He is unable to dive and can not eat on his own. After several weeks, the staff there decided that they would like to transfer him here to see if new eyes could help find the mystery problem. We recieved him and after some initial xrays found he has a lot of gas in his GI tract and are treating him for a bacterial infection. We are also tube feeding him twice a day until he begins eating again on his own.

Dylan is doing quite well, he has started eating live pray regularly. However, because he is an unexperienced migrator and the waters off of our coast are rapidly getting cold we have decided to release him early next year once the waters again warm up. We want him to have lots of time to enjoy our coast before he has to migrate. We will equip him with a satellite transmitter so that we will be able to track him after release.

Sage, our green hatchling that was affected by red tide, is hanging in there and has started to dive and eat much better! He is still pretty thin so we are going to hang on to him until he is ready to go!

Number 11, our straggler loggerhead hatchling is growing by leaps and bounds. We have started to do enrichment with him the same way we do with our larger sea turtles. He gets a small amount of fish frozen into an icecube. He may soon be getting a new name as well as taking his first trip to a new home elsewhere at the center.

Amelia, our other loggerhead hatching that was affected by red tide is also growing by leaps and bounds. She is also recieving icecubes for enrichment. She, however, is being prepared for release! We are currently trying to find a way to get her to the gulf stream, which is turning out to be quite a challenge! Once we have secured some first class transportation we will be able to take her home!

~ Jeannie Miller Aquarist