Disney Conservation

DISNEY’S ADOPT-A-NEST PROGRAM

While on our honeymoon visit to Epcot, Michael and I adopted a Sea Turtle nest at Disney’s Vero Beach Resort.  Made possible through the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund, a fifty dollar donation ensured the daily monitoring and protection of a Sea Turtle nest and its hatchlings on Disney’s Vero Beach. Our adopted nest of 73 eggs was laid on June 30 – twenty days before our wedding ceremony! At Epcot, the Adopt-A-Nest program is offered at The Seas with Nemo and Friends. I was presented with a certificate and a Squirt plush toy – from Finding Nemo – as a token of our donation.

Coo-Coo-Cachoo! On August 28, sixty-five tiny Sea Turtles – each the size of a U.S fifty-cent piece – hatched from our adopted nest and made it to the big ol’ blue. Only the female hatchlings will return to the sandy shores of Vero Beach after twenty or thirty years of swimming in the open sea – the males will spend their entire lives in the ocean.

One of the biggest impacts on Sea Turtles today is the overwhelming amount of litter floating in the water. In particular – plastic balloons, plastic bags, plastic caps and plastic drinking straws – all of which are easily mistaken for jelly fish or sea grasses. Once ingested they can be fatal.

Keeping beaches clean is key, but no matter where you live in the world you have an impact on the marine environment. Litter everywhere ends up in sewer systems and waterways – and in the stomachs of marine animals. We can all benefit from the wisdom Gill shares in Finding Nemo – all drains do lead to the ocean.

Do your part and always put litter in its place.  Pass it on!

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