Hailey Clark, a marine biology student at Florida Atlantic University and a Coastal Stewards volunteer, releases the group’s last turtle patient into the ocean on July 10. The patient is Sparrow, a green sea turtle. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
Gumbo Limbo’s sea turtle rehab may never return
By Steve Plunkett
Citing “ongoing financial challenges,” the Coastal Stewards, a nonprofit that started out more than 40 years ago as the volunteer Friends of Gumbo Limbo in Boca Raton, has dissolved itself.
The move came three months after the group on June 12 barred the public from its sea turtle rehabilitation area at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center and shuttered its gift shop there.
It transferred or released 12 recuperating sea turtles and let its final turtle patient return to the ocean off Red Reef Park on July 10.
City staff is now recommending other uses for Gumbo Limbo’s rehab space.
“My heart is so sad that this group fell apart,” said Michele Peel, a former president of the former Friends.
“Gordon Gilbert would be devastated, I suspect,” she added, referring to the Boca Raton High School teacher who took science students to the beach, founded the nature center in the early 1980s and served on the Friends board of trustees.
In a Sept. 12 news release, the nonprofit said it would give 75% of its assets to the George Snow Scholarship Fund to endow a Coastal Stewards scholarship.
The remaining dollars were split among the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, the Dolphin Research Center in Marathon and the Marine Animal Rescue Society in Miami, it said.
When the Coastal Stewards decided to close the turtle rehab unit, it had $1,000,012 left in its bank accounts, down from $3.7 million the group reported having in assets to the IRS in 2020 under its former name.
“While this decision is bittersweet, the trustees felt strongly that the best way to honor our history and preserve our mission was through a lasting legacy,” said Shivani Gupta, a corporate wellness speaker and one of the group’s trustees since late 2023. “These gifts to the George Snow Scholarship Fund and several of our valued nonprofit partners will ensure that commitment lives on.”
Merchandise left over from gift store operations was donated to the Sandoway Discovery Center in Delray Beach and Friends of MacArthur Beach State Park Inc., in North Palm Beach, the group said.
Earlier, it had donated turtle hospital equipment to Loggerhead and commissary items and furniture back to the city.
New approaches
On Sept. 3, meanwhile, two former Gumbo Limbo workers opened a “behind-the-scenes” hospital for sick or injured sea turtles at the Palm Beach Zoo in West Palm Beach.
And in an August memo to the City Council, then-City Manager George Brown urged that the city discontinue sea turtle rehab and veterinary hospital operations at Gumbo Limbo “and instead repurpose the former hospital/rehab space to expand marine education exhibits and enhance public programming.”
That expansion might eventually include installing a shark and stingray tank, he said.
Driving Brown’s recommendation: a proposal from the Loggerhead Marinelife Center that it open a satellite rehab center at Gumbo Limbo in return for a $750,000 annual subsidy from Boca Raton.
Council members have not publicly discussed Brown’s ideas.
His memo also discussed the search for someone to reopen the popular gift shop at Gumbo Limbo. Deerfield Beach-based surf shop Island Water Sports “expressed interest in the retail opportunity,” Brown wrote, and the city then issued a Request for Letter of Interest to qualified vendors.
The city is just now evaluating responses to the request.
Programs still in place
The closure of the Coastal Stewards rehab center did not affect Gumbo Limbo’s three “resident” sea turtles housed in outdoor tanks, which remain on display and available for public viewing because they could not survive being released. Also still open are the city-run turtle nesting and hatchling programs, youth camps and community education, the butterfly garden, boardwalk and observation tower.
The ex-city employees at the new West Palm Beach turtle hospital, Whitney Crowder and Emily Mercier, lost their jobs at Gumbo Limbo in March 2023 as Boca Raton transitioned turtle care at the city-operated nature center to the Coastal Stewards.
Along with fellow Boca Raton resident Samantha Clark, they started their own nonprofit, Sea Turtle Care and Conservation Specialists LLC, two years ago.
“Our hospital isn’t open to the public, but that won’t stop us from bringing you along on this journey. We’ll be sharing patient updates, recovery stories, and moments of hope, while also connecting with so many of you at our outreach events,” the group said on Facebook.
It also has a website, careandconservation.org.
Leaving a void
The nonprofit Coastal Stewards shifted from being strictly volunteer-run in 2020, hiring John Holloway as its president and chief executive officer to guide the transition.
Holloway’s salary was $122,323 in 2023, according to Internal Revenue Service records.
Peel, the past Friends president, said the city from the start “didn’t really want rehab,” which was added to the mix in 2010.
“I got questions like, ‘if a sea turtle in rehab came from a beach in Delray, shouldn’t we charge Delray for its care?’” she recalled. “They also questioned why Friends should fund education and scholarships of children who were not city residents.”
Peel praised the Snow fund for administering Gumbo Limbo scholarships for years. “But donating all their assets to Snow seems to be a violation of donors’ wishes,” she said.
And, she added, “Who is funding the (field trip) busing for the less fortunate school kids? Friends used to do that.”
She foresees someone starting a more volunteer-friendly group to fill the void left by the Coastal Stewards.
“There will likely be a new nonprofit, styled like the Friends of the Library, with little real activities of their own. And that’s a good thing,” Peel said. “It will never be as strong as the Friends of GLNC was because times have changed. Boca isn’t the little city it was in the 1980s when a handshake was how you did business.”
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