For the 2018 sea turtle nesting season the Network for Endangered Sea Turtles (N.E.S.T.) again supports the efforts of seaturtle.org Adopt-A-Nest program.
There are many regional groups whose goal is to help with the survival of threatened and endangered sea turtles. NEST (Network for Endangered Sea Turtles) is one of those groups and as your cruize around the NEST web site page you can find out information on this seasons active nest sites on the Outer Banks (click here). You can find out more about the types of sea turtles that visit the Outer Banks. If you want local sea turtle news or information on becoming a NEST volunteer or NEST training dates this is the place to find it by clicking here.
But, let’s say you want more, like how many sea turle nests there are on Pea Island which is managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service or perhaps how many nests are located on Cape Hatteras National Seashore which is managed by the US National Park Service. You may want to seek further information of sea turtle nests, strandings or world wide sea turtle activities. If that is the case we have just the place to direct you.
The organization is called http://seaturtle.org/ and it holds a wealth of sea turtle information and data. Who are they? In their own words seaturtle.org goal is to:
| Organize the world’s sea turtle information and make it universally accessible and useful |
A little background information again in their words is:
” Initially created as “Turtle Tidings” in 1996, SEATURTLE.ORG was founded out of a desire to support research and conservation efforts in the sea turtle community. This goal is achieved primarily through the SEATURTLE.ORG website and has included providing online access to the Marine Turtle Newsletter and supporting registration and administration of the Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation. More recently, we have begun to add centralized database management systems to help organizations working to conserve sea turtles to manage, organize and share their data. These include the Satellite Tracking and Analysis System (STAT), the Sea Turtle Rehabilitation and Necropsy Database (STRAND) and the Sea Turtle Nest Monitoring System (STNMS). These tools are available for use by all sea turtle organizations.
Additional efforts include the sea turtle links, the definitive list of sea turtle resources on the web and the sea turtle news archive. SEATURTLE.ORG also provides an online home to other organizations such as the Marine Turtle Research Group, the International Sea Turtle Society, and the North Carolina Sea Turtle Project.”
You may ask yourself, how can we help this organization survive and thrive? There are a number of ways and a direct donation to seaturtle.org is one of them. Another way is to embrace the seaturtle.org Adopt-A-Nest program. As you walk the beautiful beaches of the Outer Banks you may happen upon an active sea turtle nest managed by NEST. There will be a sign where you can call and report any activity information on the nest. Below that sign you may see a Adopt-A-Nest sign which lists the nest seaturtle.org identification number, the NEST nest number, the date the nest was laid, and the species of sea turtle.
An Adopt-A-Nest sign of 2017 which contains the Seaturtle.org ID #, the NEST nest #, Date laid and the Species of the sea turtle.
Nest 4 of 2017 with a “turtles rock” rock left by Abbie of Ohio
You have other options of adopting a sea turtle nest through seaturtle.org. You can review all this seasons sea turtle active nests and the general location of the sea turtle nests managed by NEST click here . On that web page there is also a click on button to take you to sea turtle Adopt-A-Nest program. Sorry, to meet the requirements of our NEST permit from the NC Wildlife Resource Commission we are not able to list specific locations and we ask that should you discover a sea turtle nest on one of your beach walks you honor that request not to post specific locations on any social media. The sea turtle nests listed on seaturtle.org for NEST are in the order that they are laid, so seaturtle.org ID number 1 on their web site for sea turtle nests managed by NEST will be nest 1.
The seaturtle.org Adopt-A-Nest program designates a portion of the proceeds of the program to NEST; however to support seaturtle.org NEST will forgo their portion for the 2018 sea turtle nesting season.
A young finder of a sea turtle nest (Abbie of Ohio) left her “turtles rock” rock at sea turtle nest 3 of 2017 and is a member of the Adopt-A-Nest club.