July 28, 2019
As you know, our Adopt a Beach campaign has ended. The results are amazing: Chateaux Sur Mer's contribution to this important program is $9000! This is our third year of participation and our largest donation yet. SCCF is so grateful for our enthusiasm and support. Kelly Sloan reports that they are very busy right now with many nests that are hatching. After last year's mass mortality of sea life, it is so encouraging to see our turtle population rebound. Thank you to everyone for choosing to help SCCF with this endeavor! (Checks will be delivered to SCCF this week.)
July 1, 2019
Thanks to everyone who has donated to our Adopt a Beach campaign! It is time for us to wrap up this endeavor, but there is still time to help. If you would like to contribute, you can make your tax deductible donation by clicking on this link: https://donorbox.org/sccf-adopt-a-beach. Please be sure to include Chateaux Sur Mer’s name in the space that asks for “community/condo/beach”. OR You can contribute as we have in the past. Your check should be made out to SCCF and it should be sent to: Robin Coleman, 4771 Rue Helene, Sanibel 33957. Our campaign will end on Wednesday, July 10.
If you already sent in a check, you should have received an email acknowledging it. If you contributed online, could you please let Robin know via email (rcolemanoh@gmail.com). We want to make sure that we account for all donations.
From Robin: Yesterday I took a walk on the beach and came upon turtle patrol volunteers close to the end of W. Gulf. They were busy trying to find a green turtle nest and had been carefully searching for close to an hour. In the attached pictures you will see one volunteer raking up tracks close to the surf so the crawl wouldn't be counted again; the green turtle crawl marks; and a nest with metal grid to keep animals from digging up the eggs. Further down the beach there was a nest that hadn't been spotted by SCCF and was unprotected. Unfortunately, animals had been able to dig up the eggs. It was a great reminder that we are fortunate to be able to help SCCF with their important work by funding supplies such as the metal grids and also funding interns and research. Our neighborhood's efforts are greatly appreciated by them!
Happy July 4 to everyone. We hope that you have an enjoyable celebration!
Regards,
CSM Board
June 4, 2019
Thanks for the enthusiastic response to our Adopt a Beach campaign. It’s great to hear such positive comments from you! Some exciting news: we now have six turtle nests on our stretch of beach!
On May 31, the Island Sun reported that numbers are up this year for nesting sea turtles. Here is a link to the article on page 1 of that issue. On page 3 of the same issue, you will see sea turtle nesting statistics from 2018 and 2019. http://islandsun.suncoastpress.com/#folio=1
Ruthelen Burns who lives on Rue Belle Mer shared a wonderful story with us. She was sitting on her lanai last Tuesday evening when she saw the SCCF turtle patrol jeep stop. Curious, she made her way to the beach in the darkness and saw an amazing sight. Here is the account she wrote to her family immediately after her encounter:
I just watched a sea turtle lay her eggs! I saw the red-lighted pair of beach patrol carts stop, and I walked to them a football field south on beach. Mama was laying the last of them. ... the leather-like, ping pong ball-like eggs! I saw them in the hole she had dug under her body! Loggerhead mama. 80ish eggs. Probably a new mama! Maybe her first lay. She secretes hormones that put her in a trance while laying so they (SCCF staff) were able to draw her blood to test for red tide, take a barnacle from her shell for same reason, tag her with a chip like our pets get, then put two metal tags with numbers on her front flippers to ID her in the future. She then repetitively swept sand over the hole with all her flippers and rotated her body 180 degrees until all covered. Her breath sounded like that hollow deep breath of the whales we watched, but less loud. When she was done she made her way slowly back to the sea--stopping, then starting again. She chooses to follow the brightest stars to the sea, I was told. I followed her, behind her a small distance as they advised, until she hit water and then swoosh, she entered and was this glowing whitish quick moving oval under the water until she was gone!! Amazing!!!! She was absolutely beautiful!! Something so ancient and holy about watching something that has been going on for near forever. Truly a peak experience... I am so moved!
The eggs will hatch in two months. They hope she’ll be back in 14 days to lay more. She can hold sperm in her body and use that to fertilize the next batch, or mate to take new sperm. She will come up to the beach to do this 4-5 times over the summer. The staff (Andrew and Ellie) tonight will cruise all the way to the lighthouse, and anticipate addressing six more new nests. They said that so far it seems to be a record year for nests! Losing 206 turtles to red tide is not seeming to yield a lesser laying season! I am so so happy to hear this!!!!
Miracles happen every day, children. Watch for them. Pay attention and show up. These kinds of things can change your soul! I am so grateful I chose to walk in the dark down our path and check it out. My ankles are eaten a bit, but it’s a worthy sacrifice!!
I love my family!
Wow, thanks so much to Ruthelen for allowing us to share her story. A miracle indeed!
May 30, 2019
It is time once again to kick off CSM’s Adopt a Beach Campaign! As most of you are aware, Adopt a Beach is the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation’s (SCCF) initiative to support sea turtles. The program’s goals are simple: 1.) SCCF is striving to have all of us be well-informed ambassadors/advocates for sea turtles who choose to share our shores and 2.) We are trying to raise $2 for every foot of CSM’s shoreline. $2 per foot may be very little to us, but to SCCF’s sea turtle program it makes a measurable difference. (According to SCCF, our neighborhood has approximately 1900-2000 feet of shoreline so our goal is to raise a minimum of $4,000.) Funds are used solely for things like supplies, equipment, and interns dedicated to sea turtle monitoring and research.
Due to last summer’s mass mortality of sea life, the Adopt a Beach campaign is more important than ever. All told, 254 stranded sea turtles, 206 dead and 48 still alive, washed upon the shores of Sanibel and Captiva. Our Adopt a Beach support ensured that every stranded sea turtle counted. SCCF rescued live sea turtles in a timely manner and made sure they received urgent veterinary help. Each death was meticulously, scientifically recorded so that the data could be compiled in a meaningful way and was added to SCCF’s pool of compelling evidence used to affect changes in our water quality policies. No turtle died unnoticed. In the face of these tragic events SCCF fought to create meaning through scientific inquiry—the results will benefit all species and us. Kelly Sloan, SCCF Sea Turtle Program Coordinator gratefully explained, “Without Adopt-A-Beach funds it is no exaggeration to say we would not have been able to keep up.”
In the short-term, our generosity had the immediate impact of helping fund an intern, whose extra set of hands eased the burden of responding to strandings. In addition, funds were used to purchase several $800-a-piece stranding kits with the tools needed to accurately record this vital, meaningful data. Our funds also enabled SCCF to conduct a study with long-term implications on potential best practices to help boost the rate of male hatchlings born, and to ensure the continuation of these species.
Chateaux Sur Mer was Sanibel’s first community to participate in the Adopt a Beach program. Your tax deductible contribution will ensure that we retain our leadership role in supporting one of the island’s greatest wildlife treasures. In 2017 we raised $5400 and the impact of our donation was doubled with a one-time matching grant. Last year our participation increased by three more homeowners and Chateaux Sur Mer contributed $8550 to SCCF's campaign. Naturally we are hoping we can rise up once again, pull together as a neighborhood, and fully participate in SCCF’s Adopt-A-Beach program benefitting sea turtle monitoring and research. Some exciting news: We already have donations from two turtle loving CSM families totaling $3500!
Please consider contributing to this important cause. CSM’s campaign will begin with this email and run through July 1.
· You can make your tax deductible donation by clicking on this link: https://donorbox.org/sccf-adopt-a-beach. Please be sure to include Chateaux Sur Mer’s name in the space that asks for “community/condo/beach”.
OR
· You can contribute as we have in the past. Your check should be made out to SCCF and it should be sent to: Robin Coleman, 4771 Rue Helene, Sanibel 33957. Checks will be held until the end of the campaign and then delivered to SCCF in July.
SCCF will send us sea turtle updates throughout the season as they have in the past. To further entice you, visit our website to see pictures and information from last year’s campaign! https://www.chateauxsurmer.org/adoptabeach-info-from-csm.
Thank you in advance for participating at whatever level you can before July 2. We are hopeful that this summer will present us with clear waters and healthy sea turtles!
Best regards,
CSM Board