Lecture: Sea Turtles

Thursday, 5/1/2008

7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Free to the public
Visitors Center Auditorium 

A naturalist from Miami-Dade Park's EcoAdventures Program will talk about the Sea Turtle Nesting and Relocation Program. The program encourages the nesting of the loggerhead, green and leatherback turtles, three species which had not reproduced successfully on our beaches for decades. Under the close supervision of Miami-Dade Parks' Beach Operations Staff, which runs the Turtle Program, the nesting rate has gone from 0 nest sites in 1979 to 363 in 2003.

The Sea Turtle Nesting and Relocation Program released over 41,000 new baby loggerhead, green and leatherback turtles, in 1998, making this one of the most efficient conservation efforts of its kind in Florida. This achievement is a victory over egg poaching by humans and animals, destruction of native habitat, and the constant disturbance of bright night lights which disorient the hatchlings and draw them to populated street areas, where they soon perish.