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Kindergartners who help raise baby turtles and then set them free.
At Stone Harbor, at the Jersey Shore, over the last 25-years, little children have been setting free baby turtles, gently placing them into the sea.
Recently, 17 tiny turtles whose eggs had been reclaimed from mothers who had died walking in traffic on coastal roads, were then hatched and raised, and set free in the sea.
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Other baby turtles are rescued from roadways, storm drains and other perilous places, and after being nurtured by the children, are also set free into the sea.
Baby turtles rescued from storm drains. Photo: people.com
"It's a great community connection," Lisa Ferguson told the Associated Press. Lisa is director of research and conservation at the Wetlands Institute.
They and Stockton University and Stone Harbor schools run this remarkable program.
Wetland and Stockton rescue injured turtles and also incubate turtle eggs and raise the babies in the first year of their lives.
Then the kindergartners get to know the turtles, and name them, nurture them, make drawings of them and with their parents, bake and sell cookies on behalf of turtle conservation.
And when that special day comes to set the babies free in the sea, the kindergarteners joyously say goodbye to their tiny friends and watch them swim away.
Who knows, but maybe one day an older child might say, I saw my old friend swim near and it brought me good cheer.
Editor's Note:
To learn more apnews.com/article/science-education-climate-and-environment-turtles
Each year, this conservation program releases 150 - 200 turtles into the wild. We learned of this wonderful story through Nice News.
In the next KazanToday: Rescuing Cheddar, a rare and beautiful lobster.
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