Melissa’s Rare Sea Turtle Encounter!

Last week, I took a vacation with my family to Fort Morgan Alabama.  Fort Morgan is about 15 miles down the road from Gulf Shores! We rented a beach house, and our neighbor (for the week!) was a sea turtle volunteer, and thanks to him we got to see one of the rarest sights on Fort Morgans Beaches! So we were standing outside about to head out to dinner, when our neighbor (Byron) came flying out of his house and informed us that a sea turtle was in the process of nesting on the beach, and that we should head that way for the chance to see something that was a "once in a lifetime" sight!

So of course being the huge animal people that we are, my aunt, my mom, and myself without any hesitation jump in the car and follow Byron to the nearest beach access to the turtle! Which was about 3 blocks down from our beach access. When we got there, a huge crowd had already started to develop, and we saw a big black box, and next to it, a bunch of people digging in the sand.

When we got closer to the box we saw the biggest and most incredible creature I've ever seen, a Kemp's Ridley sea turtle! According to some research we did, and what the turtle volunteers told us, the Kemp's Ridley turtle is endangered, and usually nests in Texas, so to see one on an Alabama shore is very rare.   Also I kind of became totally obsessed with learning about the turtle that we saw and found a really interesting youtube video about the Kemp's which if you're at all bored or interested you can see here!( I also decided I was going to move to Alabama, and become a marine biologist, but then I realized I totally hate science, and that probably isn't the best career path for me, so I'm just going to stick with radio haha! )The Kemp's turtle is a day-nester, and the only species of sea turtle that comes on the shore during the day to lay her eggs.

Luckily when she came up onto the beach, a young man saw her and called the sea turtle hotline number, and everyone sprang into action! The reason they captured the turtle in the box, was to run a few tests on her and put a GPS tracking device (More details on this in the video below!) on her and you can go to this website here and actually follow where she's been!

Also the people digging in the sand were trying to find the eggs, and once they found them they put a metal fence looking deal over them, and buried them back up and then they staked off the area around it and posted signs warning people to not mess with the nest.   The fence looking deal was to help keep predators from eating or disturbing the nest.  Since sea turtle populations are declining they take their nesting very seriously, and this group of very dedicated people check the beaches day in and day out checking on these nests, and have a watch on them and when the eggs hatch (around 60 days) they are on double time watch to watch them hatch and then they make sure the babies find it to the ocean, they said a lot of times they mistake the city lights for the moon and go the wrong way and end up being hit by cars :( but luckily for these nests these volunteers take extra time and precautions and make sure to guide the turtles if they go the wrong way with an infrared light!

Anyways, I was beyond excited to get to see this, we were told that there were people who have done this for 20 years and never seen a Kemp's Ridley! They said their beaches are usually Loggerheads that nest there, which by the way was really cool because we saw several loggerhead nests.  Anyways I was so excited to get to expirience this and I thought I'd share my story with you! :) Have you ever seen a sea turtle?! Where's your favorite vacation spot?

The turtle even made the local (Fort Morgan) news! You can see the video below!