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.”