ESSAY: RICK MUSGROVE

From Illinois, turtle appreciation

BY RICK MUSGROVE

When I first arrived at the west side of Gasparilla Island in Boca Grande four and a half months ago, the beach was littered with stakes. Up and down the coastline were stakes in groups of three with a colored ribbon at the top that went from stake to stake to stake, marking large round indentations in the sand, and my first few days were days of bewilderment. Why all these stakes and what is their purpose?

That question was quickly answered when I noticed, every morning, two people walking the beach and checking on each set of stakes. My curiosity naturally led me to go out one morning to confront them and ask them what they were doing. It was then that I learned about the loggerhead turtles, the stakes that mark the locations of their nests, and the people that walked the beach every morning checking on them.

For the next four and a half months, I was blessed to get to know just a few of the people who belong to the family of what is called the turtle patrol. These people dedicate themselves to the monitoring and well-being of any and all of the turtle nests on the beach. They take notes and document all nests in journals that they keep with them at all times while on patrol.

The people I met were kind enough to tolerate my questions and curiosity with enthusiasm due to their own love for what they do. They began to stop and talk to me whenever they saw me and provided me with a bounty of information about the turtles that make the nests and lay their eggs, and the babies that hatch and emerge from the nests.

I learned about the incredible journey that each baby turtle must endure, not just to hatch sometimes 24 inches deep in sand and to dig and claw their way to the open beach, but then the need to make a mad and crazy run to the ocean. They emerge from the sand at night after the sun sets, allowing them to start their journey under the cover of darkness. They are not much bigger than a 50-cent piece, and in some cases will need to traverse 50 to 100 feet and sometimes more of open beach to reach the ocean. Each step they take is riddled with the very real possibility of sudden death from a variety of predators that include crabs, birds, coyotes and bobcats, and then they reach the ocean where a whole new host of predators await them.

I found out that most of the baby turtles will not make it to their destination during their first few days of life. That destination is a sargassum mat that floats out in the ocean, sometimes several miles offshore, and I learned that the baby turtles have an energy supply built in that will last approximately three days. Think of that for just a moment! That is an incredible feat, an incredible journey for a tiny baby that’s just hours old.

I also learned that only one in a thousand baby turtles will survive to adulthood, and when the female turtle is between the ages of 17 and 30 years of age, she will be old enough to make a nest and lay her own eggs, and when she does, it will be within two hundred yards of where she herself started her life. I also had incredible personal experiences that I will take with me and will cherish for the rest of my life.

But now I sit at my table on the beach every morning with an odd loneliness and emptiness that is difficult to describe. I know that the nesting season of the loggerhead turtle is over, all the eggs that will hatch have done so, and no longer do the people of the turtle patrol walk the beach. I find myself now looking up and down the beach with a strange sense of hope that I will for one last time see my friends of the turtle patrol checking on nests, while knowing deep inside it is all over for this year.

I write this now, not for myself and my experiences, but for the dedicated people of the turtle patrol. I want to thank each and every one of you for giving me a most priceless gift, one that I will remember for the rest of my days. Unfortunately, I cannot recall everyone’s names, so please forgive me on that account.

To those of you who walked Zone Seven, Bill, Lynn, Alicia, Manessa, Sherry and Jen, and all the others that I met during the morning patrols, thank you for your dedication to the turtles. Thank you for your dedication and love of nature itself and thank you for your kindness and acceptance of me.

Thank you!

Essayist and poet Rick Musgrove of Springfield, Ill. is here to help on an island construction project.