Caught in the Act!

This week an AMI Turtle Watcher had a thrill. She saw a little momma heading back to the water after her hard work. When Turtle Watch Director Suzi Fox sent the picture to Marc, she was right when she said, "This will make your wife squeal!!!!!"

I'm embarrassed to say -- it did.

When I was about the age of my students, every summer my mom would let me keep a box turtle in a shoebox from last year's school shoes. I usually found a specimen in an empty lot two doors down, opposite "the preacher's house," or what Methodists call the parsonage. I would feed him or her (I never knew) iceberg lettuce for two weeks before letting it go back to its mysterious life. I still remember how excited I was when I was quiet enough for long enough for the scared little turtle to open its shell just long enough for me to see his (or her) little legs and head. I even remember trying to pry its shell open but stopping because I was so afraid of injuring my new friend.

Now living in Florida, I have the privilege to help these amazing creatures. What's even more exciting is I have come to realize that because turtles must reach the age of 35 before they reproduce, the young turtles nesting this year on Anna Maria Island were hatching and crawling onto the sand for the first time just as I was begging my mom for my first shoebox.