Staff and volunteers at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center had to move nine sea turtles to other facilities because Gumbo Limbo no longer had a license to treat them. Photo provided
By Steve Plunkett
Gumbo Limbo Nature Center’s injured and recuperating sea turtles were moved to other facilities, its veterinarian quit, and the coordinator of its turtle rehabilitation program and her assistant no longer have jobs.
“The rehabilitation facility is CLOSED until further notice,” the city-operated Boca Raton nature center said on its website March 15, later tempering the language to read that the rehab center was in “transition” and “TEMPORARILY CLOSED.”
The unexpected turmoil comes as Boca Raton was preparing to hand off operation of the rehab program to the nonprofit Gumbo Limbo Coastal Stewards, formerly known as the Friends of Gumbo Limbo, which has long paid for the veterinarian and her equipment.
The Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach took six of the program’s turtles; Zoo Miami is caring for two and the Florida Oceanographic Society in Stuart has one. Seven of the turtles are patients; two, named Morgan and Cane, were Gumbo Limbo “residents.”
The turtles were moved March 14, city spokeswoman Anne Marie Connolly said, following the resignation of veterinarian Dr. Maria Chadam and the firings of the rehab program’s coordinator, Whitney Crowder, and her assistant, Emily Mirowski.
Chadam, who cared for Gumbo Limbo’s turtles for more than a decade, said in a resignation letter that the time was overdue for her to focus on other aspects of her life.
“A culmination of events has quelled my optimism to a point where I cannot continue as a key member of this organization. This decision does not reflect a concern related to any one person or on any specific event,” she wrote in her Feb. 13 letter giving 30 days’ notice.
John Holloway, CEO and president of the Coastal Stewards, answered the next day. “Effective immediately, your services under the contract are no longer required,” he wrote.
“Once she resigned, that put our permit in temporary status,” Connolly said.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission issues permits for sea turtle research and rehabilitation, with one provision being that a rehab program must have veterinarians on staff.
Crowder, who was the FWC permit holder for the rehab unit, started working at Gumbo Limbo in 2012 as the assistant coordinator. Mirowski, an eight-year staffer, gained worldwide attention in 2019 with a Facebook post about a baby turtle that died after eating 104 bits of plastic. Both were laid off March 13 and ordered not to return to Gumbo Limbo, but are being kept on the payroll until May 22.
“Unfortunately, as far as the staff members … it didn’t work out the way we intended,” Connolly said, praising their contributions to the program. “We would have hoped they stayed onboard.”
With Crowder, the permit holder, no longer employed, the FWC ordered that the turtles be relocated.
Mirowski and Crowder say they were “blindsided” by their terminations when they showed up for individual conferences with city Human Resources Director Danielle Olson. They thought they were going to be given details of what to them was a vague transition plan.
“I thought HR was there to help you,” Crowder said.
In a Feb. 11 letter to human resources, Crowder accused the Coastal Stewards of having “unstable, toxic leadership.” Holloway, she wrote, “manipulates and lies to staff to play people against each other.”
In an interview with The Coastal Star, Crowder said Holloway also told other Gumbo Limbo staffers that the rehab unit was overpaid and that their jobs could be handled part-time.
The city’s spokeswoman downplayed the situation.
“Obviously some people aren’t happy about certain things,” Connolly said.
Holloway forwarded an emailed request for his reaction to Crowder’s assertions to Melissa Perlman, his new public relations consultant.
“Unfortunately John has nothing further to say about past HR/personnel issues involving city employees,” Perlman responded.
Dr. Mike Chouster, who was listed on the permit as Chadam’s backup veterinarian, said he “could have easily provided care if they wanted” but the city instead fired Crowder.
“A lot of what happened doesn’t add up,” he said, noting that Crowder’s and Mirowski’s positions were fully funded in the city’s budget and that no one at the city responded to him when he volunteered his services.
“A lot of the problems stemmed from their CEO,” Chouster said.
At this point, he said, he would turn down a job offer “on principle” unless the city and the nonprofit reorganize. “I think nobody’s going to want to” work there.
Manjunath Pendakur, who chairs the Coastal Stewards board of trustees, said they firmly support Holloway. “We are relying on his sound management and excellent working relationships” with the city, the FWC and others, he said.
Tanks sit empty after the sea turtle patients were moved to other treatment centers. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
Beach monitoring continues
The changes in the “hospital-type” rehab program do not affect the nature center’s sea turtle conservation program, which has a separate FWC permit to monitor nests and release hatchlings, said David Anderson, who coordinates the “beach-related” activities.
“My nesting permit is not affected by the current situation at Gumbo Limbo. My staff and I are operating as normal every morning at sunrise conducting nesting surveys,” he said.
The hatchling drop-off box is still at the center, and Anderson’s team will still respond to phone calls about injured, sick or dead sea turtles, taking them wherever the FWC directs, he said. Gumbo Limbo’s emergency number is 561-212-8691; the FWC is at 888-404-3922.
On March 25 his team rescued a turtle in the Intracoastal Waterway near the Spanish River Boulevard bridge that had been hit by a boat propeller, made it comfortable overnight, and then took it the next morning to the Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, he said.
Some of the relocated turtles might recover and be released back into the ocean before the FWC rehab permit is reauthorized. Perlman said the Coastal Stewards have hired an experienced veterinarian, turtle program manager and turtle specialist who will start work and be officially announced in early April.
In an earlier email to interested parties, Holloway said the center’s two “resident” turtles were on “a long overdue vacation” and urged his membership to donate money to bring them back.
“Of course, we will miss Morgan and Cane while they are away, but everyone is committed to welcoming them home as soon as possible,” Holloway wrote, promising “exciting updates” would appear on the group’s social media and website.
What’s next for fired staff?
Mirowski is getting married in May, but because she lost her job, she and her fiancé will hold off on their plan to start a family, she said.
Crowder was less certain. “I know my future will bring me back to sea turtles, but I am just not sure what that looks like at this time,” she said.
A person identified only as “Concerned Citizen” at www.change.org started an internet petition to “Bring Back the Sea Turtles” on March 22. By March 28 it had more than 3,000 signatures.
One of those signing was Chadam, who wrote:
“The city council should be ashamed. The nature center management should be ashamed. People aren’t thronging to the nature center to look at some butterflies, a broken down tower, lack of parking, and a building full of mold and termites ... and the beloved pufferfish is gone so good luck!”
Kirby, the center’s celebrity porcupine puffer fish, died Feb. 26.
Another signer was Cody Mott, who works for Inwater Research Group Inc. in Jensen Beach, rescuing sea turtles trapped at Florida Power & Light Co.’s nearby nuclear reactor. Mott was invited to join the Coastal Stewards’ Science and Technology Advisory Committee in 2022.
“Mr. Holloway never consulted the committee during the process to transition sea turtle rehabilitation from the City of Boca Raton to Coastal Stewards,” Mott wrote on the petition. When Chadam resigned, “the committee was not consulted. ... In the 12 months I sat on STAC it never met, despite Mr. Holloway being the chair.”
The city started negotiating last fall for the Coastal Stewards to assume responsibility for the rescue, rehabilitation and release program. As part of the arrangement, donations collected at the door, which used to go to the Stewards, will now be used for maintenance and improvements.
The city owns Gumbo Limbo and the surrounding Red Reef Park; tax dollars from the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District cover all salaries, operations and improvements.
The rehab program has grown tremendously over the years, Connolly said.
While the city and the Beach and Park District “want to support the success of the program, both organizations believe the animal rescue and veterinary component of this program can be better served by a nonprofit organization with fundraising capabilities, membership support, and the flexibility that local government agencies don’t have,” she wrote in an email. Years ago, she noted, Boca Raton transitioned all operations of the Tri-County Animal Rescue west of the city to a nonprofit.
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