Archive for August, 2010

The BeMent’s drove from Indiana to North Carolina for a Great Bake for Oceans’ Sake event with me at a local outdoor market. Cookie sale donations were sent to IMMS. The next day, we headed to the Sea Turtle Hospital in Topsail Island for the turtle tour!

I’ll be blogging about my summer turtle adventures soon! I’ve just returned from the beach where I’ve participated in marine science adventures from Cape Lookout to Topsail Island. I finally saw baby turtles making their way to the ocean. Here is a picture of the baby turtles.

Here’s a little bio on the senior interns at the Turtle Hospital. I made a day trip there yesterday to say bye to them since this is their last week in Topsail Island. I baked some of my famous sugar cookies and took as a present. Best wishes to all of you guys!

Spotlight on Devan Brayman

If she’s feeling especially “hot, hot, hot” this summer, it’s because she’s from Toronto, Canada. And although Topsail seems to be a hot spot (no pun intended) for Canadian vacationers, Devan is here for one specific purpose: to volunteer at our hospital, and not for the first time. Devan enjoyed her 2009 two week stint as a junior intern so much that she re-upped for 2010 as a full-fledged summer intern. It didn’t take her long to feel at home since some of her favorite turtles (and volunteers) are still here. And it also didn’t take her long to figure out that our college interns are definitely expected to up their game.

Devan has embraced the challenge. She enjoys the amount of hands-on interaction she has with our patients, especially with their daily care and treatment. Nursing a sick or injured turtle back to health, seeing the progress it makes from day to day, developing a connection with a “special” turtle — it’s why we all love working here. Our little Green “Carter” happens to be Devan’s favorite.

“He was my favorite last year, too. He’s kind of quirky and has a unique way of swimming. And he loves having his back scratched,” said Devan.

She also enjoys the interaction with our visitors during our tours, and notes how genuinely interested they all are in our hospital and our patients.

The hardest part of her work, besides the heat, is the care and maintenance of our water system, which definitely has a few “quirks” of its own. It’s not easy to remember the entire process, and when something breaks down you have to really concentrate and work through the possible issues step-by-step. She advises anyone contemplating our internship to be ready for a lot of hard work, and a lot of heat!

“But it’s all worth it because it’s all for our turtles,” she said. Devan commented on how her family is very proud and supportive of the work she’s doing here. And she was quick to note their contribution. “They had to drive twenty hours to get me here!”

Devan loves living at the intern house because it feels like family — with movie nights, walks on the beach and sharing music. When she leaves her beach family in mid-August, she’ll return to Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia where she’ll be a sophomore majoring in Marine Biology. Ideally, she’ll be able to put her degree and her experience here together for a job with sea turtles.

Karen Sota

Spotlight on Jared Monahan

If you were starting to feel sorry for (or envious of) Charlie because it was looking like he was the sole guy treading water in a pool of lady interns, well, dry those tears. Jared Monahan is the other half of our dynamic male duo.

Another refugee intern from the north (Brownsville, Maine), Jared has been a fan of our hospital since stumbling on it after reading about our Director, Jean Beasley and her 2007 Animal Planet Hero of the Year honor. Although he had never visited our turtles, he was intrigued by the opportunities of our internship and says it’s been pretty much what he’s expected, except for the duct tape. Duct tape is our friend, and we’ve used it in places where no duct tape has gone before. But Jared admits that, even though we appear to power through an inordinate amount of the stuff, “it works.”

Of course everyone has a favorite turtle, but Jared had only a short time to spend with his, a little Green named “Mydas” who was part of our June release. Our baby Greens are known for having wild and crazy flippers, and they’re not afraid to use them. Jared found Mydas to be an exception, a baby Green that just liked to lie back and chill. We’ve all been beaten and bruised and it’s no fun, even when you’re a big guy like Jared. But the first rule of the hospital is: once a turtle is in your hands you never let go, no matter how badly you’re being abused by it! Ouch, ouch and ouch.

Because of Jared’s mechanical abilities (he works on his own car), he naturally assumed a large role in the care and feeding of our water system, and thankfully he likes doing it. He feels that by approaching it like a big puzzle and then applying logic when something goes wrong he can fix just about anything it throws at him. And with those muscular arms, he has no trouble handling the heavy work, like cleaning the charcoal filter. You’ll also find him behind one of the tanks during our tours, telling turtle tales and answering questions from our visitors. He proclaims being a tour guide at our hospital as “cool.”

When Jared is not at the hospital, he spends his time working out, practicing soccer (he plays for his college team, the UMPI Owls) and reading. He returns to The University of Maine—Presque Isle as a senior, majoring in both Professional (Wildlife) Biology and Environmental Science/Ecology. If working on two majors didn’t take up enough time, he’s also a Teaching Assistant (Biology) and a Resident Assistant. Originally from San Diego, Jared has ping-ponged from coast to coast over the years and hopes to parlay his experience with us into an internship at the San Diego Zoo next year. It will also give him a chance to spend more time with a special lady friend who just happens to be there.

Karen Sota

Spotlight on Amy Bradt

Our weather has been crazy hot, and we’re all begging summer intern Amy to have her family ship us some of the cool air from her hometown of Syracuse, N.Y. But despite the temperature, humidity and hard work at the hospital, this northern gal shows no signs of wilting. That may be because she’s been in love with sea turtles for most of her life, and now she’s living the dream.

Amy recounts her first encounter with these amazing animals. She was eight years old and vacationing with her family in Hawaii. Because she was progressing through a series of surgeries, she was not able to hold the snorkel in her mouth. But that didn’t stop her from taking advantage of the spectacular, clear waters around the island. The family’s ingenious answer to her predicament was an inner tube with a window perched on top. Shortly into her little cruise she noticed a large shape shadowing her — a giant sea turtle. The two swam together for a long time, and thus began the love affair.

While studying at SUNY-Geneseo, where she’s majoring in Biology, she began researching internship opportunities working with sea turtles. After visiting our hospital last year, she knew that’s where she wanted to be in 2010. Although she sometimes finds it sad that turtles have so many challenges that land them in our hospital, she prefers to focus on their amazing recuperative abilities. With our long-established treatment protocols and lots of daily TLC, most of our patients show noticeable improvement within just a few weeks.

While our summer interns are expected to do everything, Amy claims that her specialty is working with “the little guys,” notably cleaning their tanks and moving them outside for their daily dose of sunshine. She’s developed a special bond with our Kemp’s “Lil’ Bit” who is just as tiny as the name suggests. But new admit “Oakie” is vying for a spot in Amy’s heart, and winning.

During our tours, Amy loves educating visitors on our turtles and our work, and she’s pretty proud that she’s been able to answer their questions. But heads up guys — because after a month of softball queries from our visitors, I’m ready to start feeding them tougher questions at the gate to see if they can “Stump the Intern!”

Amy says she likes crowds, and if she doesn’t see enough people during our hospital tours, she gets her fix at our very cozy intern house. Even after a month of living with six other people, she claims it’s still “the more the merrier.” In her spare time, she listens to music, goes to the beach and just has fun.

And Amy — we’re not kidding about that cool air!

Karen Sota

Spotlight on Amanda Andrews

She didn’t sail down here from her home in Oakland, Maine, but that’s not for lack of skill. Amanda grew up motoring around a local lake in the family powerboats. But now this rising senior at Maine Maritime Academy has her sights set on something a little bigger. With her double major in Marine Biology and Small Vessel Operations (a 200-ton license) she’ll be able to captain ships from forty to one hundred feet, from a tugboat to a nice-sized yacht.

Amanda visited our turtle hospital when she was fourteen, six years ago. She immediately fell in love with our turtles and was determined to come back as an intern when she got to college. She spent three prior summers working at the University of Maine 4-H Camp and Learning Center and the Main Conservation School where she taught camping, basic survival and life skills to the students, along with a large dose of fun.

Now Amanda has left the woods of Maine to work with our turtles, and to gather data for her senior project. Our mama Loggerheads hold the key to the numbers she needs so you can bet she’s been patrolling our beaches at night hoping for a close encounter of the nesting kind. After she leaves us in August, she’ll analyze her data and come to some kind of conclusion as exactly what effect (if any) human presence has on the amount of time a mama takes to complete the nesting process. So far she’s only been able to observe one event, so it’s pretty much “no comment” at this phase of her research.

Even though there it’s been quite a few years between her initial visit to our hospital and her stint as a summer intern, Amanda got a bit of a refresher course on what to expect a few months earlier when she attended the International Sea Turtle Symposium in India along with several of our hospital volunteers. Shortly after her arrival here, she fell hard for one of our current patients, a Loggerhead that came in on Memorial Day and is named “Remembrance” (more on this special turtle’s struggles later this summer.) It was touch-and-go for many weeks and Amanda plopped herself down by Remembrance’s side on day one and nursed her continuously until she turned the corner. These two are joined at the carapace forever, and Amanda continues to be her main caretaker.

Amanda advises anyone thinking of an internship with us to be ready for a lot of hard work. Even though the days are very long, especially with the record crowds we’re seeing this summer, she says the job always leaves her with a smile on her face at the end of the day. In her spare time (“what spare time?”) she’s on the water kayaking or in the water looking for whelks, a favorite food for our perpetually picky eater “Boater.” He’s become a bit of a diva and quite demanding since Ambassador Lennie added him to our tour, and Amanda does what she can to keep him happy.

Karen Sota

Spotlight on Holly Burchfield

Just like our turtles, our summer interns come from all over. We just happened to find Holly down the road a bit in Clemson, S.C. This Biological Sciences major had been looking for summer opportunities in wildlife rehabilitation when she stumbled on our internship back in 2009. But just prior to receiving her acceptance letter from us she committed to another position in the Bahamas with a non-profit association called “Island Journeys,” which focuses on community development. She spent her time there working with local social and government organizations to find ways to make the islands self-sustainable.

But Holly never forgot about us and our turtles, so she applied again for our 2010 program. Since she wants to go into wildlife rehab she’s delighted by the opportunity to really work hands-on at our hospital. She’s also intrigued by the number of components in our program: animal husbandry, medicine and rehabilitation, aquatic systems maintenance, tours for the public and our Topsail Turtle Project. Her background in wildlife rehab gave her an inkling of what she was actually getting into, and the internship is pretty much what she expected, “except a lot hotter!” Yeah—we’re all wilting much earlier in the day this summer. But even the heat doesn’t stop her from doing one of her favorite jobs: cleaning the filters for our water system. It might not be glamorous but it’s amazingly satisfying work: totally stress-free with instant gratification. The water in our patient’s tanks just sparkles, and when you have your adoring public coming through on tours every turtle wants to look their best! In fact tours are one of Holly’s favorite times of the day. Her mother is a teacher and Holly likes answering questions. Go ahead—ask her how much a satellite tag costs.

When asked what advice she’d give to someone thinking about applying next year she had a few pointers:  visit and take the tour; if possible start a year earlier as a junior intern to get a feel for the basics; and be ready for hard work. She said her time here has really helped her narrow down exactly what she wants to do with her life.

After completing her twelve weeks with us Holly will return to Clemson University as a senior. When she’s not playing her viola in the school orchestra she’ll be contemplating additional education at a graduate level, possibly vet school. But while she’s here she’s enjoying communal life at our intern house, and cooling off at the beach with some ice cream.

Karen Sota

Spotlight on Samantha Ford

We get a lot of visitors from the Pittsburgh area, and sometimes we even get an intern or two from there. Samantha, a.k.a. “Sam” first spent some time with us in 2008 when she arrived with sixteen other Allegheny College students as part of an alternative spring break. Now we know for a fact that nobody, nobody, can spend any time at the hospital without falling in love with at least one of our turtles. And it was a hospital favorite, a little post-hatchling Green named “Baldie” that stole Sam’s heart. It’s a good thing Sam didn’t wait another year to apply for our internship because she would have missed seeing a much larger Baldie finally released this past June.

The physical effort involved in taking care of our patients came as no surprise to her; she’d been here and done it a few years ago. But when you sign on for the twelve-week internship you’re expected to do a lot more. Of course there’s our very challenging water system and all the peripherals attached to it. That water in our turtles’ tanks doesn’t stay clean by itself, and one of the most dreaded jobs is to be assigned to clean out “the blue hole,” the big tank in the ground that’s the first stop for water coming from the overflow pipes. If you like becoming one with the dirt and plunging your arms into the great unknown, this is the job for you. There are also two large holding tanks, what we call our “baked potatoes” because they’re wrapped in silver insulation. Sam’s eyes glazed over when she recounted scrubbing out the algae that built up inside these monstrosities over the winter. That flexibility she’s developed from her ballroom dancing proved useful far beyond her wildest dreams!

When she’s not communing with algae Sam enjoys doing turtle treatments, and especially likes working with our “babies.” She finds it incredibly cool that these critters learn to trust us so much, and says the connection is nothing short of “magical.” Little Kemp’s “Lightning” is one of her favorites, but Loggerhead “Virginia” is definitely making a run for the number one spot.

Sam’s advice to anyone contemplating our internship is: give your personal statement and essay serious thought, make sure you have a strong work ethic and a passion for animal care and be prepared to sweat a lot and smell like fish.

Sam has already graduated with her degree in Environmental Science & Psychology so she’s investigating the job market for opportunities. Once she manages to pay down some of her loans she’s contemplating graduate school and eventually a PhD in Animal Behavior and/or Art Therapy. When she’s not dancing she spends time painting. Unfortunately she didn’t bring her art supplies with her because “I didn’t think I’d have any spare time.” She thought right!

Karen Sota is the volunteer media coordinator for the Sea Turtle Hospital in Topsail Beach.