SEAsons Greetings :-]

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Helping Out In Husbandry

This past month has provided many hands on opportunities in helping out with husbandry at the GSTC. I thoroughly enjoy helping out as I learn so much while doing so!

On December 19th, I helped Steven as he removed medihoney from the boat strike wound along the spine of Emma and administered her dry-vacuum therapy. Her name is short for Emerald as she is a green sea turtle. Green sea turtles are vegetarians and their fat is dyed green from all the chlorophyll they consume.

On December 16th, I assisted with getting Talbot ready for his potential release. Talbot was given a satellite transmitter, flipper tags, and a pit tag. I was thankful there were several helpful hands as I administered my first pit tag (it is quite an intimidating first-time task). Talbot is a sub-adult male loggerhead sea turtle that had marine debris wrapped around his flippers causing a loss in circulation. We had to amputate about four inches of his right flipper.

On December 10th, I helped Jessica with Griffin's weight-belt therapy. Griffin has experienced an event similar to a human stroke therefore forgetting how to be a sea turtle. His weight-belt, which was fashioned by Georgia Tech (and is coincidently yellow and black), helps neutralize his buoyancy. This allows Griffin to more easily be able to dive and stay submerged.

I love my job!!

Christmas Time is Here!

Even if it is 70 degrees outside, holiday cheer is in full force here on the island! The palm trees and cottages are decked out with lights, wreaths, and ribbons. The festivities started with the Jekyll Island Tree Lighting Festival. I had a great time as my parents were in town, Scutes Christmas Adventure puppet show and the sea turtle "wreef" craft were both a big hit and several third grade sea turtle experts impressed us with their knowledge from the STEP Program. There were fireworks after the tree lighting. It was quite different to watch fireworks while listening to Christmas songs and wearing my heavy jacket!!

I have also enjoyed getting to learn about Hanukkah as one of my friends on the island is Jewish. We had a fun time the first night of Hanukkah playing with dreidels and making yummy dreidel cookies.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Thanksgiving greetings from the Golden Isles :-]

Guess who is the newest official blogger for the GSTC... :-]

Thankful for Thankfulness

Check out these amazingly adorable thank you cards from a school that recently came to the GSTC. Just one small reason why I love my job!

This card is my absolute favorite! Just in case you are unable to read the text, it says: Thank you for telling us amazing facts and info on sea turtles! I loved seeing the sick sea turtles and learning about how you are going to help them. I am really inspired to help save sea turtles.

Causeway Cleanup & November Arrivals

On Wednesday thirteen volunteers, including eight GSTC staff, helped clean the salt marsh along the Jekyll Island Causeway. Within just one hour we had removed 22 bags of trash, a plastic kiddy swimming pool, a plastic storage container, and three large carpet squares. While working we encountered giant crickets, banana spiders, huge cacti, and thousands of sand spurs.

Two Kemp's Ridley sea turtles from the Marine Animal Research Center at the University of New England in Maine arrived at the GSTC on Thursday. It was quite an epic journey that Knievel and Peppermint Patty had as they were flown from Maine to South Carolina and then driven to Jekyll Island. WTOC from Savannah joined us in documenting their arrival. Both of the sea turtles are suffering from complications due to cold stunning/sea turtle hypothermia. Hopefully they will have a speedy recovery!

Turtleween was a blast!!

We had such a great time yesterday at the GSTC with Turtleween!! There were over 400 visitors who shared in our fun as well! The Georgia Southern University Center for Wildlife Education also joined in the festivities and brought several birds of prey and creepy crawlers. Some of the fun Turtleween activities included Griffin's medicine milkshake station, bobbing for jellyfish, paper plate franken-turtles, face painting, beanbag turtle toss, pumpkin patch, and many more! The GSTC staff dressed up as epibiota (the organisms that can live on sea turtle's shells) this year. Sea urchins, barnacles, bioluminescence, mussels, sponges, columbus crabs, anemones, and leeches were all creatively represented.

My first month at the GSTC has been such a blast and I am still so thankful for and blown away by this opportunity. Numerous things have been happening here lately so let’s dive right on in!!

On Friday, October 9th, Dexter, TriSarah, and Tunicate were released back to into the wild which was such an awesome and rewarding experience. It was great to share in the mutual excitement of the release with people who had also been looking forward to it all week. Right after the release, all of the AmeriCorps members hit the road heading north to Atlanta. We took part in a service project at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School alongside other Georgia AmeriCorps service groups. I was asked to give a speech about why I served to the three hundred plus crowd. Needless to say, I was a little nervous! However, I was at ease once I looked up and saw all of my GSTC buddies sitting on the front row smiling at me! Our two hours of service included painting pictures on wooden panels that were to be posted in the school. We were also able to lend a helping hand to a sick Gopher Tortoise from Albany that the AmeriCorps group from there was nice enough to bring to us. I jokingly referred to him as Picasso since I had painting on the brain and the name has stuck! :-] I am happy to say that Picasso is slowly but surely getting better. Before heading back to the Golden Isles, we were able to visit our partners at the Georgia Aquarium for a deluxe behind the scenes tour. It was such an honor to see the name of our Veterinarian and Director, Dr. Terry Norton, on their honorary/"We couldn’t do this without you” plaque. My parents also had dinner with us!!

This past week has been busy as well! On Wednesday I received an awesome and encouraging evaluation from the director of the school group that I led around the Center. Thursday, I got to hold our Kemp’s Ridley (the most critically endangered species of sea turtle), Tinkerbell, while she was having the wounds on her carapace (top shell) cleaned. We like to say that she is getting a “shellicure.” My other adventure of the day was fetching a live blue crab to feed to Caretta Hope, one of our Loggerhead sea turtle patients. They were pesky little crustaceans! Today was exciting, as another Americorps Education member and I debuted the premier of the soundtrack recording to our puppet show Scutes Ocean Adventure. I am really starting to fall in love with the puppetry arts!

One last note…Make sure to check out the Center’s website for a new blog featuring the new GSTC AmeriCorps members and Picasso!

Front page, above the fold, & in color :-]

Check out this awesome article about the GSTC AmeriCorps Members in the Jacksonville Times-Union!!!

Hello, October!!

October is keeping us busy here at the Center!

Yesterday we started our Sea Turtle Education Program. Every third grader in Glynn County has the opportunity to learn about sea turtles through two assemblies at their school (our Georgia's Sea Turtle and Trash in the Water programs) and a field trip to the Center so they can meet our patients. One of the seventeen schools that I will be working with is Frederica Academy and they are such a cool group of third graders!!

Today we participated in the 15th Annual CoastFest (which is sponsored by the Coastal Resources Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources). I thoroughly enjoyed this event!! It was very hands on as people were able to build bluebird houses and terrariums, see and touch snakes, turtles, birds of prey and sharks, learn about hurricanes and weather, watch Creek Indian dances and see black powder (muskets and cannons) demonstrations, just to name a few activities...

At the Center's booth people could make paper plate turtles, play tic-tac-toe turtle, see diamondback terrapin hatchlings, and examine several specimens such as sea turtle, tortoises, and terrapin carapaces (shells) and skulls. I loved working at the craft part of the booth. The paper plate turtles that the kids made were super adorable and they had fun making them while learning about them as well!

It was great to learn about the uniqueness and awesomeness of this "habitat" that I call home :-]

MQD, Rescue Specialist

Last weekend I was given the opportunity to train for Disaster Relief Control through the Georgia Emergency Management Agency. Our instructor was Fire Chief Drew from Dublin (Laurens County, Georgia not to be confused with the Emerald Isle). He was extremely knowledgeable and brimming with stories from his fifty-plus years of service. I also enjoyed meeting several people from the community as there were close to twenty other students including one of the firemen from the station across from the Center.

For the longest time I have wanted to learn how to tie knots. I am now proficient in tying several knots such as the clove hitch, single figure eight, figure eight on a bight, fisherman’s knot, and a prussic hitch. We also did several exercises with topographical or “topo” maps, grid systems, echelon lines, ten signals, and the phonetic alphabet. Overall, I had a blast and I am excited to be able to help serve and save others along with sea turtles.

9/20 Release

Here are more photos from the 9/20 release of Skidaway, Pumpkin and Night Watch (courtesy of the Georgia Sea Turtle Center).

What a great and exciting day!!

I spent the first day of Autumn alongside the Atlantic Ocean... Life is grand :-]

Week One Highlights

Saturday: Getting to know the girls during a four hour Wal-Mart run and watching UGA vs. South Carolina with the 4-H interns

Sunday: Going to church and eating lunch at Shane's Rib Shack with an old friend of mine

Monday-Wednesday: Training, paperwork, training, paperwork, training, paperwork.....

Thursday: The BEST day of the week.....Hatchling walk/nest excavation, shadowed in husbandry (worked alongside the vet staff assisting with patient wound care and nutrition), and a potluck dinner with the staff including a pie eating contest.

Friday: Training completed and celebratory dinner with the girls at Rah Bar (some of the best shrimp I have ever eaten!!)

Saturday: Goodwill grand opening, great walk on the beach and visit with Uncle Scott and Aunt Susan, Shrimp and Grits festival shopping with Renee and of course UGA vs. Arkansas!

Sunday: Releasing Pumpkin, Night Watch, and Skidaway, showing the lead singer of Modern Skirts along with Uncle Scott and Aunt Susan around the Center, and getting two new sea turtle patients.