Sea Turtle Hospital
Founder and director, Jean Beasley, who was the 2007 recipient of Animal Planet’s Hero of the Year award, hopes that a new $1 million, 16,000 to 18,000-square-foot facility will be built soon. The new facility, to be located on four acres in Surf City, will replace the current 850-square-foot hospital, which can handle only about 20 turtles per year.
Topsail Island is home to the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center, one of only two in the U.S. The Center cares for and rehabilitates injured loggerhead and other species of turtles and releases them back into the sea or finds other homes for them. Staffed by volunteers, the Center has been invaluable in the help and protection it has provided for sea turtles.
Volunteers protect and watch the many nests sea turtles build on the island each year. They have attached tracking devices to some of their patients who have been returned to the ocean so their movements can be monitored and more can be learned about their habits.
Learn and practice in-flight and action photography with MJ as we spend 5 full days touring one of the best and most populated wading, shore and sea bird colonies on the East Coast of North Carolina. MJ has been teaching action and flight photography for more than a decade and is one of the best and most knowledgeable instructors on the subject. And the locations can not be beat!
Join us as we photograph
wild Egrets, Herons, Shore Birds,
Sea Birds, Alligators, Nesting
Ospreys, Wild Dolphins and more
Wildlife than one coastal area can
show. You will visit Wildlife
Sanctuaries like; Mason Inlet Water bird Management Area, as it offers a variety
of barrier island habitats, including open beach, dunes, and marsh. Birdlife
here changes with the seasons: in winter flocks of small shorebirds feed on
sandy inlet shoals, while in the summer large groups (colonies) of Least Terns
raise their chicks on hot sand. You will also have the opportunity to collect
shells and even fossilized shark teeth. You can also take a dip in the ocean off
Topsail's most beautiful beaches on the East Coast..
In between our birding
quest we will help visit and give assistance to the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle
Rescue and Rehabilitation Center in Surf City. We will also witness sea turtle
hatchlings emerge from their nests as they make their first steps of
survival towards an independent life out to sea.