Gumbo Limbo Is More Than A Safe Haven For Endangered Turtles

By Maschal Mohiuddin

Near­ly 30 years ago, the City of Boca Raton, Fla. began a nature cen­ter to edu­cate the pub­lic about the tur­tles that nest on this community’s beach­es.  Today, that plan is not working.

Instead, the Gum­bo Lim­bo Nature Center’s orig­i­nal pur­pose of pro­vid­ing envi­ron­men­tal instruc­tion has been expand­ed and increased by cater­ing to tourists.  The nature cen­ter is thriv­ing as a des­ti­na­tion for fam­i­lies and friends to pass their time sightseeing.

“Peo­ple spend hours just sit­ting in the but­ter­fly gar­dens or walk­ing on the board­walk and they come here to get away from the hus­tle and bus­tle of life,” said Kristin Child, the envi­ron­men­tal pro­gram coor­di­na­tor at Gum­bo Limbo.

Gum­bo Lim­bo offers long walks along the quar­ter mile board­walk through the pre­served Hard­wood Ham­mock.  Peo­ple can med­i­tate in the authen­tic Semi­nole Chi­ki Hut, con­struct­ed with almost 5,600 cab­bage palm fronds, which over­looks the Intra­coastal Water­way.  The coast is alive with sight­ings of man­a­tees and herons, which just scratch­es the sur­face of this bet­ter termed “com­mu­ni­ty” center.

When the Gum­bo Lim­bo Nature Cen­ter was orig­i­nal­ly found­ed in the 1970s, the City of Boca Raton hoped to pre­serve the five miles of coast­line and rec­og­nized a need for an out­door, hands-on envi­ron­men­tal pro­gram as ben­e­fi­cial to the com­mu­ni­ty.  A group of con­cerned cit­i­zens then formed the not-for-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion, Gum­bo Lim­bo Friends of the Nature Cen­ter as well as an advi­so­ry and fundrais­ing com­mit­tee for the cen­ter.  This com­mit­tee and the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District’s dona­tion of $750,000 pro­vid­ed the means to build the nature center.

The cen­ter is oper­at­ed by Friends of Gum­bo Lim­bo, which help fund the estab­lish­ment along with sev­er­al oth­er not-for-prof­it con­trib­u­tors such as the Nor­ma Ter­ris-Albert D. Fire­stone Foun­da­tion and con­ser­va­tion foundations.

Gum­bo Limbo’s impact on a com­mu­ni­ty of thou­sands is eas­i­ly mea­sured by the dai­ly traf­fic of chil­dren and adults at the free facil­i­ty and the 200 vol­un­teers that serve reg­u­lar­ly at the cen­ter.  The com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter attracts near­ly 150,000 peo­ple to its many fea­tures.  Among these indi­vid­u­als are around 10,000 school chil­dren that come to the center’s many offered camps and day programs.

“It is an hon­or for the chil­dren to come to Gum­bo Lim­bo,” said Flo­rence Fos­ter of the Adven­tur­er Club for Kids from West Palm Beach.  “They learn about the dan­gers tur­tles face here.”

The Adven­tur­er Club is part of the youth min­istries of the Sev­enth-day Adven­tist Church.  It focus­es on strength­en­ing par­ent-child rela­tion­ships for ages six to nine by pro­vid­ing week­ly activ­i­ties designed for the needs of the chil­dren and encour­ag­ing parental involvement.

Kids from the Adven­tur­er Club vis­it Gum­bo Lim­bo to earn badges and under­stand the impor­tance of tak­ing care of the environment.

“The nature cen­ter is very patient with the kids and knowl­edge­able about what they do,” said Rena­ta Teter, a staff mem­ber for the Adven­tur­er Club.

There are a great num­ber of young peo­ple who have been inspired by their reg­u­lar trips to the cen­ter and when they grew up became vol­un­teers, accord­ing to Child.  Now the stu­dents have become the teach­ers, stand­ing in the fore­front of the edu­ca­tion pro­gram at Gum­bo Limbo.

“I became inter­est­ed in the cen­ter when my school vis­it­ed, now I like to edu­cate peo­ple about the envi­ron­ment,” said Aman­da Olsen, a 17-year-old vol­un­teer at Gum­bo Lim­bo.  Olsen has been vol­un­teer­ing at the cen­ter for almost three and a half years since the age of 14.

Rachel Shanker, a 20-year-old vol­un­teer at the cen­ter, had a sim­i­lar expe­ri­ence.  She believes the cen­ter serves as a great way to pro­mote aware­ness about envi­ron­men­tal issues by talk­ing with the thou­sands of peo­ple that visit.

“We couldn’t sur­vive with­out our vol­un­teers, they do most of the dai­ly talk­ing with the pub­lic,” said Child.

Vol­un­teers end up con­tribut­ing more than 22,000 hours annu­al­ly, an equiv­a­lent of 11 full-time staff mem­bers.  Gum­bo Lim­bo cur­rent­ly has a staff of 12 full-time, four part-time, and nine sea­son­al employ­ees to work at the facility.

Nature cen­ters locat­ed 10 to 20 miles near any town results in increased aware­ness about the marine inhab­i­tants such as tur­tles, accord­ing to Kurt Rusenko, marine con­ser­va­tion­ist at Gum­bo Limbo.

“If you go to a place with­out a nature cen­ter, you’ll be shocked to hear peo­ple have no idea [about the envi­ron­ment],” said Rusenko.  “It also makes huge increas­es in tur­tle knowledge.”

Gum­bo Lim­bo offers a wide range of ser­vices to pro­mote edu­ca­tion, aware­ness, and reha­bil­i­ta­tion.  These ser­vices include tur­tle walks, hatch­ling releas­es, nest mon­i­tor­ing, rehab med­ical teams, and tank feed­ings among others.

The nature cen­ter is pri­mar­i­ly involved in sea tur­tle con­ser­va­tion in the area.  Flori­da con­tains some of the most impor­tant nest­ing beach­es for sea tur­tles in the world.  These sea tur­tles are either threat­ened or endan­gered.  Col­li­sions with boats and pol­lu­tion threat­en their health, while oth­ers too affect their reproduction.

Gum­bo Limbo’s team stud­ies all the sea tur­tle nest­ing activ­i­ty along the city’s beach, pro­vides edu­ca­tion about nest­ing and reduc­tion in light­ing, and responds to reports of injured or dead sea tur­tles.  The reha­bil­i­ta­tion wing at the cen­ter treat­ed and released more than 177 tur­tles since 2010.  They per­formed surg­eries on almost 35 of those tur­tles as well.

But the cen­ter is more than just a tur­tle hos­pi­tal.  Enter­ing the estab­lish­ment, vis­i­tors see an enor­mous West Indi­an man­a­tee skele­ton hang­ing on top of the infor­ma­tion desk.  A group of vol­un­teers, both young and old, engage vis­i­tors at the desk.  Laugh­ter rings out in the room, and chil­dren act excited.

Out­side, the four big sea tanks and pavil­ions are what attract vis­i­tors the most.  They rep­re­sent the coastal man­grove com­mu­ni­ty, near shore reefs, a trop­i­cal coral reef, and an arti­fi­cial reef with a ship­wreck.  The tanks span the entire ground lev­el of the cen­ter and con­tain sev­er­al kinds of aquat­ic organ­isms such as stingrays, sharks, and oth­er fish.

Gum­bo Lim­bo also has a but­ter­fly gar­den, Semi­nole Chi­ki Hut, and board­walk.  The com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter pro­vides a range of indi­vid­ual and group edu­ca­tion­al opportunities.

One of the great­est things about the Gum­bo Lim­bo Nature Cen­ter, accord­ing to Child, is that it’s com­plete­ly free.  One of Gum­bo Limbo’s key mis­sions is nev­er to turn any­one away just because they couldn’t afford it.  This results in a wide range of vis­i­tors to the cen­ter, includ­ing inter­na­tion­al guests on vacation.

“We are not Dis­ney World, we are a nature cen­ter,” said Child.  “We have a lim­it­ed staff and it’s a lit­tle run down here, but it’s a nice place to come.”