Chi Omega at the University of Florida: Taylor's Sea Turtle Internship

This summer I am continuing my internship with Sea Turtle Conservancy. Located in Gainesville, there aren’t any sea turtles in my office much to my dismay, but we do a lot of policy, grant and public outreach work in order to protect sea turtles internationally and here in Florida. Most people don’t even know STC is located right here in Gainesville so I’ll give you some quick background info on us. STC is the world's oldest sea turtle research and conservation group and it was founded by a UF professor, Dr. Archie Carr, in 1959. It is an international non-profit and is credited with the foundation of sea turtle conservation and research.

Besides getting to obsess over turtles each day, most of my time this summer has been spent planning Tour de Turtles. Tour de Turtles is a sea turtle migration marathon and a turtle release that takes place each year in Florida, Costa Rica and Mexico. Thirteen turtles are sponsored by organizations and each turtle is “racing” to raise awareness about a threat to turtles. Whichever turtle ends up swimming the furthest from where they were released wins the marathon. The satellite trackers on the turtles relay its location to our website, where visitors can pick their own favorite turtle to personally sponsor and keep up with its travels. I am charge of planning the event from volunteers to sponsors and venues, so it is overwhelming at times, but a lot of fun to plan and be a part of. And I get to kind of play with real turtles so I’m loving life.

I also work on projects to raise awareness about sea turtle-friendly lighting in Florida and what humans can do to save sea turtles so here is my save the sea turtles public service announcement to Chi Omega. If you live on the beach or spend time vacationing there, make sure your turn off all lights that are visible to the ocean at night. Nesting turtles and hatchlings confuse artificial lighting for the moon, which is their guide back to the ocean. When they head in the wrong direction, their chance for survival is greatly diminished and they already only have a 1 in 1000 chance of survival. I promise I am not a complete turtle lady…if you have any questions or want more information visit www.conserveturtles.org.

Love,

Taylor Buckels