“They’re also fascinating and charismatic creatures, which is the reason I chose to work to conserve them in the first place.” – Olivia Redding, Rescue and Research Coordinator, Coastal Connections, Inc.
Olivia Redding from Coastal Connections and I met at the boardwalk in Vero Beach, on Florida’s eastern shore. She’s wearing the green shirt that workers and volunteers wear, alerting early morning beach walkers that she’s there on a mission. That mission is to check the forty or so nests of baby turtle hatchlings, still in their eggs, laid months ago in the spring. This summer (2025) was a particularly heartbreaking one because the fury of Hurricane Erin tossed tons of sand on these delicate nesting areas as it blew down the coast. But we can still tell where the nests are because of the blue stakes, like paint stirrers, peeking out of the beach sand.
Redding spent the morning with me, walking down the half mile stretch of beach they monitor for traces of sea turtle activity, new nests, and general observations of the existing nests. She can tell the type of turtle that came up on the beach by the tracks left by their crawl along the sand to a potential nesting site. One track we saw looked like curly lasagna, typical of a loggerhead turtle. We could see the trail as it headed up towards a spot under the boardwalk, but it had turned back to the sea without digging a nest. Evidently, as Redding explained, it wasn’t a suitable spot.
Loggerhead sea turtle egg (Photo credit: Joe Rimkus – Coastal Connections, Inc. volunteer)…