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Sea Turtle Nesting Season Winds Down on a High
Florida’s sea turtle nesting surveying comes to a close on Halloween and like everything else in 2020, the season was a bit weird. The number of green sea turtle nests on central and southern Brevard County, Florida beaches monitored by University of Central biologists were way up during a year they should have been down […]
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Hurricane Dorian Washes Out More than 8,000 Sea Turtle Nests
BY ZENAIDA GONZALEZ KOTALA At least 8,000 sea turtles nests washed away from the Brevard County portion of the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge earlier this month because of Hurricane Dorian, according to a University of Central Florida survey. The refuge, which extends from southern Brevard County into Indian River County, is one of the […]
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Sea Turtle Diet Expert to Give Talk about Importance of Healthy Habitat
A University of Central Florida biologist who is an authority on what sea turtles eat will present on her work March 18 in a public seminar. The talk at the Barrier Island Center in Melbourne Beach will focus on what endangered and threatened sea turtles eat, types of habitats they depend upon in Florida, and […]
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Where Turtles Eat Unlocks New Conservation Areas
by Allison Hurtado UCF alumna Simona Ceriani published a new study that finds sea turtles are what they eat – but where they eat may be even more important. Ceriani, who is a tenured research scientist with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, collaborated with three UCF Department of Biology researchers on the study, published […]
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James Bacchus Joins UCF Faculty
by Christine Dellert A new center will focus on advancing UCF’s work in economic and environmental issues and fostering links for faculty and others in the UCF community to sustainable development efforts at the local, national and global level. James Bacchus, who joins UCF as Distinguished University Professor of Global Affairs, will lead the UCF […]
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Knight Life: The UCF Turtle Team
It’s 9:30 p.m., the sun is down, and your shift is about to start. You put on your long pants, long-sleeved shirt, bug jacket and fanny pack with your nightly turtle kit. Out on the beach in Brevard County, in the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge, you’re starting your search for nesting female sea turtles. […]
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Real Science
The Biology Summer Field Institute isn’t a field trip into the woods. For the week of July 17, rising high school juniors and seniors become real scientists. Led by Jennifer Elliott, Assistant Director of the UCF Arboretum, students were broken up into four groups: wetlands health assessment, forest ecology, vegetation monitoring, and gopher tortoise studies. […]
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COS Professor Honored with Reach for the Stars Award
Kate Mansfield, Ph.D., is one of five of the University of Central Florida’s brightest early career professors. She was honored for her cutting-edge research, including her internationally recognized study of sea turtle migration. She received the Reach for the Stars Award as part of the celebration of Founders’ Day on April 5, 2017. President John C. […]
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A Knight for the Sea Turtles
The University of Central Florida College of Sciences and Department of Biology hosted ‘A Knight for the Sea Turtles’ in Melbourne Beach on Friday, November 18, 2016. The event celebrated UCF’s partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The partnership, announced over the summer, establishes a permanent conservation research facility along the southern Brevard County coastline. […]
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Hurricane Impacts Threatened Sea Turtle Nests
Story by Zenaida Gonzalez Kotala, UCF Today As many as 200 loggerhead sea turtle nests and 550 green turtle nests were estimated to have been lost in central and southern Brevard County because of Hurricane Matthew. Each nesting season thousands of threatened sea turtles lay nests along Central Florida’s coast, particularly on the shores of […]
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Permanent Home for Sea Turtle Research
Story by Zenaida Gonzalez Kotala, UCF Today The University of Central Florida and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have reached a historic agreement that will establish a permanent conservation research facility along the Brevard County coastline. UCF has run a sea turtle monitoring and research program on the beaches of the Archie Carr National Wildlife […]
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Presenting Sea Turtles in Peru
CENTRAL FLORIDA FUTURE – Isabelle D’Antonio, Contributing Writer In February 2016, hundreds of sea turtle enthusiasts and researchers from around the world will gather in Lima, Peru, for the 36th annual International Sea Turtle Symposium to present their research and discuss conservation efforts. This year, junior Abigail Hudak, UCF biology major, will be one of […]
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Record Year for UCF Marine Turtle Research Group
Green sea turtles have had their highs and their lows. Before being commercially harvested for hundreds of years, green sea turtles used to be a typical sight in the Atlantic, but now they are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in multiple locations across the globe. Even with being one of the first species to have federal regulations protecting them, green […]
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UCF Marine Turtle Program Attracts & Inspires
The UCF Marine Turtle Research Program attracts some of the best biology students from across the nation thanks to the groundbreaking work of its founder and the hands-on experience students get at the most important turtle nesting beach in North America. After getting the UCF experience, students go on to work in the field with […]
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Endangered Green Sea Turtles Make a Comeback in Florida
MELBOURNE BEACH, Fla. — When Chris Long thinks back on a summer spent digging up holes in the beach, it’s a job he says he “wouldn’t trade … for anything.” The 26-year-old University of Central Florida Ph.D. candidate spent months looking for green turtle nests, studying the comeback of a species that — at one […]