A month out!

I have interned at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center for one month, and what can I say? I love it!! Week one was a lot of training. All nine of us that are on the Night Patrol Team had training week one with our supervisor. We learned more about sea turtles and our position, got CPR training and really just got to know one another. After our week of training all of us Night Patrol Members are rotating between the husbandry, education and patrol departments. So for the last month, I have been making my way around the departments learning more about sea turtles.

In the husbandry department we do things like pick up sea turtle poop, help prepare food (cutting up dead fish, squid and shrimp), feed the sea turtles and land/marsh turtles. Other things I got to help with include helping with Griffin's physical therapy. Griffin had what is similar to a human stroke so he forgot how to swim, dive and eat. I got in the tank with the 200lb sea turtle. We put a weight belt on him to help him relearn how to dive. I walked around the tank with the food in front of him while my coworker pushed him under the water to reteach him how to dive. The center occasionally takes in birds of prey. We currently have an osprey and another hawk at the center so I got to watch them being fed.

In the education department, for the first couple weeks we mostly went to all the programs(i.e. patient update, puppet show, Georgia Sea Turtles, Journey). We are required to present a program before we start night patrolling so we have to become familiar with the different programs. We also go around and talk to guests and answer any questions they have about sea turtles. Today, I got the chance to do my first presentation. I did the 3pm puppet show as well as the 4 pm feeding, where I got to feed Varun, Griffin and Caretta Hope.

Patrol is more of doing office work. We are given tasks that our supervisor wants us to do, or we help out with the education department.

Other than that, I have been hanging out with my fellow AmeriCorps Members. Spending time on the beach as well as making time to go out and have some fun!