Saving the Sea Turtles with the Loggerhead Marinelife Center

The Loggerhead Marinelife Center is an NGO located in Juno Beach, Florida. It was created in order to promote conservation of ocean ecosystems that focuses especially on endangered species of sea turtles with the goal of providing education worldwide about these endangered species. They are also working to do more research on sea turtles and provide more rehabilitation for these endangered animals. 

The Loggerhead Marinelife Center has been rehabilitating endangered sea turtles for over thirty years, and their advanced hospital has labs that allow for surgeries, x-rays, blood work, as well as other kinds of labs that allow for several turtles to be seen at once. These turtles are worked with from the time the turtles are rescued until they are safe to be released back into the ocean. The hope is that all turtles will eventually be returned to the ocean, however if they are somehow deemed unreleasable the center has places to send them that will take care of the turtles for the rest of their lives. 

This is Romi, who came into the center as a juvenile with a buoyancy disorder after being struck by a boat. She received treatment at the center after being admitted on September 9th of 2021, and was able to be released back into the wild on November 5th of 2021. 

The center has ways for even everyday people to come help out and get involved. Beach cleanups are run from 8:30-11:30am every Saturday morning to help get people involved in preventing the loss of more sea turtles. You also can participate in the adopt a sea turtle program, which helps fund the continued care of these turtles. Lastly, there is a volunteer program that is run by the center, which works with public education and helping with the operations of the hospital. Donations are also accepted in the hopes of continued funding for further rehabilitation of turtles. 

The Loggerhead Marinelife Center also created Project SHIELD in 2013, where they teamed up with other sea turtle organizations to provide further conservation efforts by rescuing turtles that had gotten hooked on fishing piers. The project also provides conservation solutions for piers along the beach, beachside hotels, and scuba operators and runs pollution prevention projects. 

The Loggerhead Marinelife Center is doing more and more research on sea turtles and how best to protect them. The center tracks the nests of leatherback, loggerhead, and green turtles on Juno Beach each year, and continues to monitor all of the activities of each turtle during their nesting season on the nearly 10 mile long beach. As they continue their research, more comprehensive data allows for more comprehensive conservation decisions to be made to help increase the survival and recovery of sea turtles. The Loggerhead Marinelife Center hopes to continue to spread awareness of sea turtle conservation worldwide.