Sadie Hawkins, a hawksbill turtle being treated at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in this June 13 photo, was moved to Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach after the nonprofit Coastal Stewards closed Gumbo Limbo’s sea turtle rehab unit. Of the 13 turtles being treated at the time of the closure, only three have yet to be relocated. One is to be transferred to another facility and two are expected to be released into the ocean this month. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
Related: Former Gumbo Limbo workers plan to open turtle hospital at Palm Beach Zoo
By Steve Plunkett
The gift shop at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center is locked and empty, 10 of the center’s final 13 sea turtle patients have been transferred to other facilities or released, and no one can yet say whether a turtle rehabilitation unit will ever return to Boca Raton.
“We’re open to discussing potential new partnerships for sea turtle rehabilitation and we haven’t decided on how the gift shop space will be used,” said Deputy City Manager Chrissy Gibson.
The rest of Gumbo Limbo remains open and operating.
The changes are the result of a surprise decision June 12 by the nonprofit Coastal Stewards group, which had run the rehab unit and gift shop since April 2024 but faced declining contributions and increased competition for donations.
“Like many environmental nonprofits, the Coastal Stewards has faced increasing difficulty securing consistent and sustainable funding,” Shivani Gupta, a member of the group’s Board of Trustees, said in a news release the day after the board’s vote.
Coastal Stewards staff transferred six turtle patients to the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach on June 24, released two along Cape Canaveral’s seashore and dropped off one at the University of Florida Whitney Lab’s Sea Turtle Hospital in St. Augustine, said the nonprofit’s spokeswoman, Melissa Perlman.
One patient was taken to the Turtle Hospital in Marathon by Turtle Hospital staffers who were in the area for other reasons, said Lisa Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which regulates handling of sea turtles and other endangered or threatened animals.
That left three turtles — named Blossom, Sparrow and ReReRe — in the Coastal Stewards’ care, Perlman said.
“Blossom and Sparrow will probably be cleared for release within about two weeks and both will be local,” Perlman said. “ReReRe is showing some clinical decline, unfortunately, and will likely be a medical transfer instead of a release.”
’I've done all I can do’
The nonprofit’s board of trustees June 12 meeting marked the unraveling of the Coastal Stewards in its present form. John Holloway, the group’s president and chief executive, tendered his resignation but agreed to stay on as a consultant while the Stewards wind down Gumbo Limbo’s turtle hospital.
“Currently the Coastal Stewards face challenges that reflect the broader crisis in the nonprofit sector,” Holloway told the trustees. “The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently reported nearly 20,000 nonprofit jobs lost in the last five months alone, underscoring the gravity of the situation.”
Drastic federal budget cuts have led to increased competition for dollars and reduced prioritization for community services such as marine conservation, he said.
Veterinarian Shelby Loos and rescue and rehabilitation coordinator Kara Portocarrero also stayed to care for the turtle patients but have accepted jobs elsewhere, Holloway said. He said he had fired the group’s chief financial officer and support staff.
“I’ve done all I can do, and the organization cannot afford a staffing,” he told the trustees.
Holloway, who joined what was then known as the Friends of Gumbo Limbo in 2020 as its first paid president, quickly faced the challenges of that year’s COVID pandemic and the city’s extended closure of the nature center and gift shop, as well as the city’s 2023 decision to keep donations collected at the door to run Gumbo Limbo rather than turn them over to the nonprofit.
Money issues
That resulted in “an immediate annual loss of approximately $350,000 to our operating budget,” said Holloway, who was paid $122,323 in 2023, according to Internal Revenue Service records.
Holloway’s estimates of the door donations were high. The city actually took in $133,741 January-September 2023, $164,270 October 2023-September 2024, and $176,671 October 2024-May 2025, according to Deputy City Manager Jim Zervis.
Another damper on fundraising efforts was a decision by the city attorney that names of any donors would be public records under the state’s Sunshine Law, he said.
Holloway thanked his staff members for their services, including his husband, Chad Farnum, “who stepped in to do half-price event planning.”
Earlier in the meeting, the trustees were told that they had $1,000,012 left in their bank and investment accounts after withdrawing $200,000 to pay the costs of closing the turtle rehab center and gift shop. That’s down from $3.8 million the group reported having in assets to the IRS in 2020.
The sudden closing surprised some people with close ties to the turtle hospital.
“That was a shock to me,” said Bob Rollins, vice chair of the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District, which reimburses the city for Gumbo Limbo’s operating and capital expenses.
“I think it was a mistake getting the chief executive,” said Beach and Park District Commissioner Susan Vogelgesang.
“I’m sad and disappointed, but totally unsurprised given what I know of decisions and directions the nonprofit took starting in 2020,” said Michele Peel, a former volunteer president of the Friends of Gumbo Limbo.
Holloway said he had contacted city officials in February about getting financial help and received no response. He tried again in May and got a reply that “the city is working on a response.”
The trustees’ moves came after the Coastal Stewards in April vacated their rented office space in an unincorporated county pocket between Ocean Ridge and Briny Breezes.
Visitors to the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton could view patients in the sea turtle rehabilitation unit only from behind a gated fence June 13, the day after the Coastal Stewards decided to close the facility. These turtles have already been relocated.
A troubling few years
The closure of the rehabilitation center does not affect the three “resident” sea turtles housed in outdoor tanks at Gumbo Limbo, which remain on display and available for public viewing. Boca Raton, which operates the nature center, holds the FWC permit for keeping the resident turtles, while the Coastal Stewards were given the permit for providing veterinary care.
Also still open are the city-run turtle nesting and hatchling programs, youth camps and community education, the butterfly garden, boardwalk and observation tower.
Boca Raton used to operate all facets of Gumbo Limbo, but it decided in March 2023 to fire its sea turtle rehabilitation coordinator, who held the FWC permit, and her assistant coordinator. The FWC then ordered all ailing sea turtles and resident sea turtles transferred to other facilities.
The terminations came as the city was developing a plan to transfer the rehab unit — including its financial obligations — to the nonprofit Coastal Stewards and a month after Maria Chadam, the unit’s on-call veterinarian, resigned.
Since then, the Coastal Stewards hired veterinarian Loos and two other employees full-time to qualify for a new permit.
The road to the permit was hampered by a series of missteps by both the Coastal Stewards and the city, and it wasn’t until April 26, 2024, that the first new sea turtle patient arrived.
From then through March 31, the Coastal Stewards admitted 54 sea turtles needing rehabilitation, roughly five per month, and all were under Loos’ care, the FWC said.
Patrons’ confusion
The closure makes the Juno Beach center and ZooMiami the closest places where sea turtles in distress can get veterinary care. Ann Paton, the group’s onetime grants coordinator, told the trustees that raising money was difficult because everyone thinks the city and not the Coastal Stewards runs the rehab unit.
“As soon as you start to explain it, you can look into the eyes of the person you’re talking to, and within 30 seconds they’ve glazed over because they’ve always believed that that whole magilla, that whole beautiful institution, is one entity,” she said.
“In order for (the nonprofit) to move forward, it would need to have a board that was very focused on fundraising and able to bring people from the public to the table to discuss the nonprofit’s needs, so that the important education that it’s doing can move forward and benefit our community,” Paton said.
The agreement with Boca Raton calls for the Coastal Stewards to give 90 days’ notice if they want to terminate it. Holloway said he hoped the city would end it in 45 days.
Chadam, the former part-time veterinarian at Gumbo Limbo, said she heard in May that Holloway would be leaving by year’s end.
“He’s blaming the city of course,” she said.
But city officials, in her view, don’t care about sea turtles.
“I predict a pickleball court coming to GLNC,” she joked.
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