Sea Turtle Patrol

This week, the Field Guide is catching up with Nava Kiss, an intern with Conservation Legacy’s Stewards Individual Placements Program. We visited with her earlier this year as she was just getting started in her position as the Visual Information Specialist at the Gulf Islands National Seashore. Click here if you want to check out what Nava was up to at the beginning of her internship.

Nava taking photos atop historic Fort Pickens. (Credit: Perry Doggrell)

Recently, Nava was able to participate in the release of sea turtle hatchlings with the park’s Science and Resource Stewardship team. Sea turtles are an endangered species due mainly to coastal development and pollution. The bright city lights near the seashore can disorient sea turtles, leading them away from the ocean and instead toward the road and traffic. In order to help combat this, volunteers and staff members at the Gulf Islands National Seashore join for annual sea turtle patrols, attempting to follow the hatchling’s tracks – starting at the nest and continuing for potentially hundreds of yards.

A sea turtle making its way to the ocean. (Credit: Nava Kiss)

“We got to rescue 8 hatchlings that had disorientated from their nest – one of them had even been found in the road,” Nava shares of her experience on turtle patrol. “I got to document the event and tell the story so visitors could see and experience it, and hopefully learn a lesson about driving the speed limit. We counted over 20 tracks that had crossed the road and were not able to find and rescue them all. Dozens more have been found by patrols this season struck and killed by vehicles. But it made rescuing the ones we did even more rewarding.”

Video screenshots of the sea turtle Nava filmed returning to its home.

Nava was able to capture underwater video footage of the sea turtle hatchlings. She explains, “I stuck the GoPro in the water in the hopes of capturing something. I ended up getting close and far away swimming shots of the turtles, something we had never captured before!” The swimming sea turtle you see to the left can be found in action here.

After a nest has hatched, trained staff members visit and excavate the nest. This designated post-hatch visit involves doing an inventory on what percentage of eggs hatched, determining if the nest was disturbed by predators, and rescuing any stragglers in the nest. Nests are left undisturbed and unsupervised by the park until after the hatching, so as to preserve the natural process.

Scientists in the Parks intern Madison Williams sorts through a sea turtle nest excavation. (Credit: Nava Kiss)

Growing up, Nava and her dad traveled the country through his job in the Air Force, making sure to visit as many National Park sites together as they could. Because of this, Nava says, “I have gotten to experience the National Park Service through a lot of different angles. This opportunity to work directly with a park through the Stewards Individual Placements Program was incredible. I learned a lot of real-world skills, how government agencies operate, and how NPS interacts with the public, partners, and other parks. It has been really cool seeing how things I grew up experiencing, like ranger programs, visitor centers, and more are developed and managed. I had awesome mentorship at my park through my supervisor and the whole admin team. The advice I got from senior staff members here made a huge difference in obtaining a job. Being an Individual Placement intern allowed for me to get that individualized attention and guidance.” Nava will move on to a permanent position with the Department of Defense in September, having accepted a position with them as a Visual Information Specialist – the same title of her internship position!