UPDATE: Coastal Stewards' president resigns after reducing nonprofit's staff; rehab center vet and coordinator have accepted jobs elsewhere
Visitors to the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton on Friday could only view patients in the nature center's rehabilitation unit from behind a gated fence after the Coastal Stewards abruptly closed the marine hospital and the nature center's gift shop following a Thursday vote by the nonprofit's board of trustees. BELOW RIGHT: A sign posted on the fence alerted patrons to the nonprofit board's decision. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Steve Plunkett
The public can no longer visit the sea turtle hospital or buy gifts at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton following a decision by the nonprofit Coastal Stewards to cease operations there.
“While public access to the rehabilitation center has ended, the 13 sea turtle patients currently under care will continue to receive veterinary attention onsite,” the group announced in a news release Friday. The nonprofit is working with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to ensure their safe transfer to other licensed facilities, it said.
“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 the release.
The trustees voted to end the rehabilitation program June 12.
Their 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 will stay on as a consultant while the Stewards wind down the turtle hospital
Veterinarian Shelby Loos and rescue and rehabilitation coordinator Kara Portocarrero will also stay on to care for the turtle patients but have accepted jobs elsewhere, Holloway said. He said he had terminated 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.
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 thanked colleagues 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 have $1,000,012 in their bank and investment accounts. That’s down from $3.8 million the group reported having in assets to the IRS in 2020.
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 come after the Coastal Stewards in April vacated their rented office space in an unincorporated county pocket between Ocean Ridge and Briny Breezes.
Boca Raton, which operates the nature center, posted on Facebook that “the city is committed to the mission of Gumbo Limbo and will thoughtfully evaluate future opportunities, including potential partnerships for continuing rehabilitation efforts and repurposing the gift shop space.”
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. The city holds the FWC permit for keeping the resident turtles, while the Coastal Stewards were given the permit for giving 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.
One of 13 ailing sea turtles now being treated at Gumbo Limbo that will have to be transferred to another facilty after the decision by the Coastal Stewards to end its operations at the nature center.
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.
Ann Paton, the group’s onetime grants coordinator, told the trustees that raising money is 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.
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 last month 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 the turtles.
“I predict a pickleball court coming to GLNC,” she joked.
This is an updated version of the original story, which was posted at 4:38 p.m. June 13, 2025.
Comments