(upbeat intro music) - Hi, I'm Miss.

Penny from KidVision PreK and we're here today to find out what a marine biologist does.

Let's break the word down.

So, let's talk about what marine means, what biologist means and what a marine biologist means, what do you do?

I'd like to start with you please.

If you could tell us your name.

- My name is Keith Herman, I'm the senior aquarist here at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center.

- And what does marine mean?

- [Keith Herman] Marine is the study of a salt water environment.

So it'll be something like the ocean.

- And your name please?

- I'm Whitney Crowder, I'm a sea turtle rehabilitation coordinator.

- And how about biologist?

- That would be the study of life on Earth.

- And please tell us your name and what does marine biologist mean?

- I'm David Anderson, I'm the sea turtle conservation coordinator here at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center and a marine biologist is one who studies all life in the ocean or in other salt water environments.

- So what specifically do you do?

- [Keith Herman] I take care of the fish here in the aquariums, we make sure they're happy, healthy and well fed.

- [Whitney Crowder] And I manage the sea turtle rehabilitation center, so I'm in charge of all of our rescues of sea turtles, all of the rehab and release of our sea turtles.

- [Davis Anderson] I monitor all five miles of Boca Raton beaches for all the sea turtle nesting activity that takes place.

We look for evidence that sea turtles came out of the water overnight and we mark the location of the nest and protect them all the way through until they hatch.

- What motivated you or inspired you to pick your field of work?

- My parents like to tell me a story that when I was little, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I told them I wanted to be a killer whale.

I didn't quite make killer whale, but taking care of fish is pretty close.

- My family use to spend vacations at the beach all the time, so I was very interested in all the activity that was taking place along the beach.

So when I was in college, I began studying sea turtles and then when I moved to South Florida, I began volunteering at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center and now I get to work here and protect the sea turtles that's on our beach.

- And how about you?

- Every since I was a little girl, I've wanted to be a voice for animals and now I can be.

- Well, I'm very excited to be at Gumbo Limbo to learn more about what marine biologist do and we're going to spend a little bit of our day with each of you so we can find out more about what you do.

- Sounds great.

- That sounds great.

- Good, I think we're going to start on the beach.

(upbeat music) So we're on the beach, how do we know that this is a turtle nest?

- [David Anderson] So our teams sees turtle tracks in the sand where the female has dragged her heavy body out of the ocean up onto the beach to deposit her eggs in the sand and we follow those tracks up to where the eggs are and we proceed to mark the nest accordingly.

- About how many nest are made during nesting season?

- [David Anderson] We have three species and it will all add up to about 1,000 nest by the end of the summer.

She comes up and she lays her eggs, she will return back to the water and she will go and rest and feed, and forage, and sleep, and for a couple weeks, and believe it or not, she will come back and lay another nest.

The same female turtle may lay multiple nest in one summer.

So, she may lay four, five or even six nests.

- [Miss.

Penny] How many eggs are in each nest?

- [David Anderson] Each nest has about 100 eggs in it.

- [Miss.

Penny] So that's like 600 eggs for one mom.

- [David Anderson] Exactly.

- We must have a large turtle population.

- Well turtles are endangered species and we must do what we can to conserve the turtles and of course protect the nest.

- [Miss.

Penny] And when the babies come out, how many of them make it to the water?

- [David Anderson] Well, of the hundred eggs, normally only 90 of those hundred might hatch, most of them might actually make it to the water, but once they get into the ocean, there are a lot of predators out there, but some of the things that might prevent them from getting to the water are some of the predators that are on land.

We do have foxes and raccoons.

But one of the biggest problems is artificial light pollution.

Hatchlings use the glow in the sky to find their way to the ocean.

- [Miss.

Penny] Oh because they think it's the moon.

- [David Anderson] They think it's the moon, the stars and all that reflecting off of the water.

But now unfortunately the glow in the sky is occurring over land.

So the turtles come out and they're confused and they may actually turn around and go toward the dunes instead of the water.

- [Miss.

Penny] Oh no, so how do you mark it then so that people know not to go near it?

- Well, we have on our nest, orange stakes around it and we have an orange ribbon marking the perimeter of where our best estimate of where the eggs are and we put a yellow sea turtle nest sign on the front of our nest.

So when people are going up and down the beaches, you can see, you know where the nest is located and know to stay clear of it.

- Are there other things that people can do to help?

- [David Anderson] People can prevent light from shining onto the beach at night.

Whether it's outdoor lighting at your home or not using a flashlight on the beach.

It's very important to keep our beaches nice and dark at night.

We can reduce the amount of plastic we use.

We often find turtles with plastic in their stomachs particularly what we call post-hatchlings, turtles that have hatched out of their nest, gone and lived a few weeks out in the ocean and then unfortunately consumed lots of tiny bits and pieces of plastic.

They become sick and weak and they wash up on the beach and sometimes beach goers, just like you may find one and they call us and we will take it into our rehab center.

We also treat turtles that have been struck by boats and we have turtles that are just sick like we get sick, turtles get sick and when they are well, we release them back into the ocean.

- Perfect, I would love to see the rehabilitation center.

- That sounds great, I look forward to taking you there.

- Alright.

(upbeat music) - Right now, we're in the rehabilitation facility because we're going to find out about this turtle.

We have a marine biologist with us and a veterinarian and they've been working on this turtle trying to make her well.

So let's find out what was wrong with her and how she's getting better.

- So this is a green sea turtle, her name's Gamora and when she came to us she was very thin and she was sick and she had tumors on her, on her flippers and her eyes and her shell and they get a disease called Fibropapillomatosis, which you can call FP.

- How do we take off the tumor?

- We have to take them to surgery and we have to cut the tumors off.

- And I see you have FP honey, what is that for?

- Well, FP stands for Fibropapilloma, we use honey to help wounds heal.

So we rub honey all over that wound and then we'll leave her out of the water for maybe 10 minutes and let it do its job.

- Let's talk about her body parts, what is she checking now?

- [Maria Chadam] See her eyes?

- [Kid] The eyes.

- [Maria Chadam] Making sure she doesn't have any tumors on her eyes, because tumors like to grow on their eyes and the tumor can get so big, that they can't see.

- She's a sea turtle, so she's underwater.

And she has a nose so how does she breathe?

- They have lungs just like we do, so they actually breathe air and that's why turtles sometimes end up here because they get hit by things like boats when they come up to take a big breath of air in the ocean.

- We're going to lift her up and look at her underside.

She had tumors here, you can see scars.

She had a big tumor here on her shell.

The shell is bone covered by a layer called keratin.

It's like their skin so they shed it and they have feeling in their shell.

- How big is she going to get?

- She's going to get very large, up to 400 pounds.

- As a marine biologist, you're studying these turtles and so what are you learning from this particular turtle?

- Well, we've learned that this disease is very common in green sea turtles and all the sign point to dirty water as being the source of why they're getting sick.

- What can these children do to make things better for the sea turtles?

- Well, you can try to not use so much plastic in your house.

You can buy a water bottle that you can fill and refill, right?

Use little containers that you can wash. We wanna plastic, or metal, or glass that we can use again and again, right?

Because some of our turtles eat plastic and they get very sick.

- After you've treated a turtle and you feel like they're getting better, what's the next step?

- Well, we look at different things like if they're gaining weight, we take blood and make sure they don't have signs of infection and then we decide if they're healthy enough to go back out into the ocean.

- Do you treat other animals besides turtles?

- We have fish, which I don't specialize in treating fish, but I did do surgery on one of our pufferfish once to remove a hook.

- So you have an aquarium here also?

- Yes, we do.

- I think that's our next stop.

- Have fun.

- Thank you so much for telling us about rehabilitation.

- You're welcome.

- Bye Gamora.

(upbeat music) - Today, we've been at Gumbo Limbo learning a lot about what marine biologist do.

It's so interesting to find out how they rescue and take care, rehabilitate turtles.

What do you do here at the aquarium?

- So all of our fish are from the wild.

We call them ambassadors for their wild cousins.

Not everyone is able to go out into the wild to see these beautiful animals so we are recreating their environment here so you can come and enjoy them.

- What kind of fish do you have here?

- [Keith Herman] This is what we are calling our coral reef tank, so we have a lot of reef dwelling creatures including wrasse, parrotfish, angelfish, tangs, and our large eel that might come up and eat for us here.

- I hope the eel comes.

- Me too.

- Alright, who is your helper?

- This is Bryan Danson, he's the other half of our aquarium team here at Gumbo Limbo.

He and I take care of the aquariums and keep the fish happy and healthy, - And what are we feeding them?

- [Keith Herman] Small silver fish called capelin and pink shrimp from the Florida Keys.

(upbeat music) Are you guys ready to help us feed some sting rays?

- Yeah!

- We're going to feed them one at a time.

Just to make sure that everybody gets a chance.

We're also going to keep track of who's eating so that we know that everybody's had a chance to eat.

Mr. Bryan's going to give you some fish and we're going to get you to feed them.

(upbeat music) - Thank you very much for showing us how to take care of fish and how to feed them well and so that they live a long natural life here and other people can see who they are.

- You are so welcome.

Thanks for visiting us.

- Today we were at Gumbo Limbo learning about marine biologist.

What do marine biologist do?

- Take care of animals that live in the ocean.

- That's right and how can we help them?

- By not using more plastic.

- That's right.

Thumbs up for marine biologist.

Great job.

Thank you, bye.

(upbeat outro music)