From Jekyll to Wassaw to Tybee, sea turtle experiences in Georgia and education await

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Requiem's flapping flippers almost sounded like bird wings fluttering as Morgan Flannagan, a Georgia Sea Turtle Center hospital technician, pulled the green sea turtle from a rehabilitation tank. Flannagan dried the turtle off and took it inside to the center's hospital room.
'Sea turtles don't have health insurance,' said Michelle Kaylor, the Jekyll Island center's director. She and a crowd of center visitors watched Requiem through the hospital room's public observation window as the endangered turtle was fitted with a microchip on June 6. The turtle, whose sex is not known, was nearly ready to be returned to the ocean since arriving May 3 with a large J hook embedded in its esophagus.
Kaylor said Loggerhead and Green Sea turtles account for most of the center's patients, many of which have suffered human-caused injuries. In addition to sea turtles, people bring other wildlife in need of triage to the center. Situations could also involve diamondback terrapins as well as birds such as eagles.
Sea turtle cases can come from off the coast of Georgia's 15 barrier islands or as far north as the Massachusetts. Some turtles that travel to the Cape Cod area can get cold-stunned because they get stuck in bay due to the land mass shape and, since they cannot internally regulate their body temperature, become hypothermic. Such situations come to the New England Aquarium, Kaylor said. 'They'll triage them, take them in, and then they, with NOAA, coordinate sending them out to different facilities throughout the U.S.,' she said.
Providing emergency and rehabilitation care for Loggerheads, Kemps Ridley, Leatherback and Green sea turtles is merely one element in a series of decades-long conservation efforts made by the center and other organizations within the Georgia Sea Turtle Cooperative, which is coordinated in part by Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Wildlife Conservation Section Sea Turtle Program Coordinator Mark Dodd.
Dodd said some conversation efforts started as far back as the late-1960s under former University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology Professor Jim Richardson, who retired in 2016. His research on shrimping trawls leading to stranded sea turtles helped lead to federal protection. He was also instrumental in the early expansion of the use of TEDs or turtle excluder devices, which prevent turtles from becoming ensnared in shrimping and fishing nets.
Throughout coastal Georgia, multiple organizations afford turtle enthusiasts to learn such tidbits and more through educational and experiential opportunities.
Home Free: Mystic Aquarium released 22 rehabilitated sea turtles back into the wild on Jekyll Island
Pump the brakes: Marine Science Center reminds drivers to slow down for terrapin crossings
In addition to the hospital viewing room and the ability to observe turtles in the rehabilitation pavilion, the center offers interactive educational activities. It also features a full scale replica of a prehistoric sea turtle in its gift shop. Proceeds from the shop and admissions tickets help fund the center and its programs.
The center has rehabilitated and released nearly 750 sea turtles since it opened in 2007.
Where: 214 Stable Road, Jekyll Island, Georgia
Cost: $9 for ages 4-12, $11 for teens and adults. Yearly supporter membership options are offered as well as group rates.
Website: jekyllisland.com/activities/georgia-sea-turtle-center
The Caretta Research Project is not a facility. Education and Outreach Coordinator Kristen Zemaitis said its unique program is volunteer operated. People pay to stay on the Wassaw National Wildlife Refuge for week.
On any given week of the program, six volunteers and two biologists collect data for research. "Everyone who comes out there during the summer learns firsthand what it's like to be a biologist, what it is that these turtles need," Zemaitis said. Roughly 100 people can access the experience each summer, and about 40% of them are returner volunteers who share their experience with others and wind up bringing folks back with them. "We've had people from six countries and all 50 states," she said.
Caretta also partners with schools to bring sea turtle education into the classroom. All the organization's efforts serve its mission "to ensure the long-term protection and full recovery of the Northwest Atlantic loggerhead population and the ecological roles that it plays through research, conservation and education.'
Where: offices located in Savannah, but sea turtle research and protection activities occur on Wassaw National Wildlife Refuge
Cost: ranges from $950 to $1,100 per person per week depending on time of registration
Website: carettaresearchproject.org
Tybee Island Marine Science Center's Veterinary Tech Sarah Alley and others offer educational programming for locals and tourists alike. The center's biologists and approved volunteers also actively track and relocate turtle nests on the island, which are up to eight as of June 13.
Much like the Sea Turtle Center, the science center on Tybee addresses the needs of and educates the public about more than Loggerheads and Leatherbacks. The public can learn about bird migrations and about wildlife such as horseshoe crabs, sea gulls, diamondback terrapin and more.
Tybee's center offers year-round walks on the beaches and in the marshes. It also often shows local artists' works in its Coastal Galleries such as Cat Ward's "Deep Dive" installation.
Reach out to see how you might be able to assist with ongoing conservation and research initiatives on Tybee and Little Tybee Islands.
Where: 37 Meddin Drive, Tybee Island, Georgia
Cost: 4 and under are free while children 5-12, seniors and military personnel pay $12, regular admission is $15
Website: tybeemarinescience.org
Dodd said all the sea turtle conservation efforts across the state aim to to restore turtles to a "viable population that's fulfilling its role in the ecosystem."
He said in some ways the population is getting to that point, noting a recent situation at the Jekyll center where a gravid female had to be euthanized. The turtle was brought in because it was missing significant portions of its front flippers. Unlike Requiem, though, the other turtle's injuries weren't caused by humans. Biologists determine that it had been bitten by a shark. In a way, the biologists let natural selection take its course since the turtle could no longer swim or feed.
Dodd said getting ever closer to that viable population would mean humans can start to scale back their interventions while continuing to innovate elements such as the TEDs.
Zemaitis said full recovery to the Caretta Project refers to "full recovery of the entire North Atlantic recovery unit." She said while Georgia and and Florida may appear to have huge spokes in nesting, challenges could still be facing turtles on the coasts of North Carolina and South Carolina. Cape Romain, South Carolina, for example, typically sees 1000s of Loggerhead nests, the largest amount outside of Florida. "It is now almost completely inundated at high tide due to sea level rise, and their dunes have been flattened from hurricanes," she said.
Over 98% of this year's sea turtle nests in Georgia belong to the Loggerhead species. Six are Green Sea Turtle nests and four are unknown. While Greens and Leatherbacks are commonly spotted foraging off the Georgia coast, they tend to nest elsewhere.
Dodd expects this to be an average year, in relation to the last decade's worth of counts, with around 2,500 nests. DNR logged the most nests in a single year back in 2022 with over 4,000 documented throughout the state. When Dodd started at DNR in 1999 the Collective was tracking roughly 1,500 nests a year.
Dodd said macro data implies turtles nest about every two to three years, so its not surprising the numbers are average this year. DNR knows this because, every year, the contents of a single egg from each found nest is sent to DNR and University of Georgia (UGA) Senior Research Scientist Brian Shamblin for maternal DNA analysis.
All member organizations of the state's Sea Turtle Cooperative contribute to the DNA collection, which now has decades of data that can pinpoint nesting habits of individual turtles, some of which are are 70+ years old. He said while the statistics are complicated, DNR believes it has identified a grandmother Loggerhead. 'So that's a female that's over 100 that is still reproductively active,' he said.
Joseph Schwartzburt is the education and workforce development reporter for the Savannah Morning News. You can reach him at [e-mail] and JoeInTheKnow_SMN on Instagram.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Sea turtle conservation in Georgia has been decades in the making