Adopt a sea turtle nest

Thank you for your interest in adopting a sea turtle nest!

Your adoption will help support Mote Marine Laboratory’s Sea Turtle Conservation & Research Program (STCRP), which monitors sea turtle activity to learn more about their biology and behavior with the goal to help reduce human impacts on these endangered and threatened species.

STCRP monitors 35 miles of nesting beaches on Longboat Key, Lido Key, Siesta Key, Casey Key and Venice, Florida. Our research contributes to cooperative efforts to monitor the status of sea turtles statewide. STCRP is celebrating more than 40 years of sea turtle conservation.

Your donation supports our daily nesting surveys and monitoring efforts.

(If adopting for the 2024 nesting season, we will likely contact you in May of next year to get you started.)

The minimum suggested donation is $50, and includes an adoption certificate with a photo of the nest, as well as information on the outcome of the nest.

A few things to keep in mind:

Nests can be impacted by numerous factors (water, predators etc.) and although we try our best to select a nest with good odds, we can not guarantee your nest will hatch.

For the safety of the nest, we will not provide information about when the adopted nest is due to hatch.

Adoption requests for nests on a specific beach are accommodated whenever possible.