Topsail Island, at 26 miles (41 kilometers) long and 500 to 1,000 feet (150 to 300 meters) wide, is an ideal place for a retreat with its beautiful shorelines and fishing sites. The?small island located in the State of North Carolina, United States, is also known, to a lesser degree, to be one of the few nesting grounds in the country for sea turtles. ?
“Look, there’s another one!”
Every day during the summer season, an unlikely team of volunteers consisting of retired preschool teachers, military veterans, florists and other professions gather at dawn to walk for a mile along the beach on Topsail Island, looking for sea turtle nests that were laid overnight. The team excitedly marks off a nest using orange tape and wooden sticks, along with a small sign indicating that it is illegal to “mess with the nests”. The volunteers hope to ensure a better chance of survival for the endangered sea turtles that use their beaches as nesting grounds. This small beach community is one of many around the world that endeavors to protect organisms in their own backyard.
Unfortunately not all sea turtles are found in such a state full of hope. A few miles away along the coast sits the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rehabilitation and Rescue Center, which takes in sick or injured sea turtles found along the coast?with the aim of successfully returning them to the ocean once they are healed. As of June 2022, the center looks after 28 sea turtles found in the State of North Carolina and beyond. The turtles that arrive at the center shed light on some of the biggest threats to sea turtles, and more broadly, ocean biodiversity. Sea turtles arrive after being hooked on discarded fishing line; injured by boats or dredges; after swallowing plastic; being bitten by sharks; or after being cold stunned.
Most recently, a sea turtle named Lime-a-palooza was rescued after being hooked at a local pier. After nearly a week of observation, Lime-a-palooza began passing a balloon which had been in its?digestive system for an unknown amount of time. Ultimately, a balloon and more than 3 feet of string passed through the turtle’s delicate digestive system.
Globally there are seven species of sea turtles, all of which are endangered and also serve as harbingers for the general health of the ocean. Turtles like Lime-a-palooza provide?immediate and informative messages about humanity’s impact on the ocean and its living creatures. For example, according to the , each year an estimated eight million tonnes of plastic end up in the ocean, the equivalent of dumping a garbage truck of plastic every minute.
“Animals like sea turtles can become endangered because of our personal choices, community choices, government choices. The actions we take can be negative to one species or another, and just like that we can make a choice to take a harmful action or make that choice to take a restoring action,” said Kathy Zagrebiski, Director at the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rehabilitation and Rescue Center.
In total, over 1,100 sea turtles like Lime-a-palooza have come through the doors of the rescue center since the late 1990s. For many of the staff at the center, contributing to the turtles’ recovery gives them the feeling that they are rectifying the actions of humans, and when the turtles are released to the ocean it gives them hope for the planet. If Lime-a-palooza can survive against all odds, why can’t our planet? Why can’t our oceans?
Lime-a-palooza has recovered significantly since the balloon and the string were both removed. The staff at the rescue center are hopeful that they will be able to release Lime-a-palooza back into the ocean in the near future. Like the planet’s oceans, sea turtles are resilient. World Ocean’s Day, observed every year on 8 June raises an alarm about the need to protect the world’s biodiversity in relation to SDG14: Life Below Water, and is perfect timing for us to think how we can be as strong.