Loggerhead Marinelife Center

Looking for a meaningful way to spend your Saturday morning? 🌎💙

Join us tomorrow from 8:30–11:30 AM for a World Ocean Day Cleanup with Palm Beach County Parks and Recreation Department. Together, we can help keep our beaches clean and create a healthier ocean for wildlife and future generations.

Grab your friends, bring your reusable water bottle, and we’ll see you there! 🌊♻️

A local legend returned to our beaches this season. “Juno,” the appropriately named leatherback sea turtle, returned to nest 25 years since she was first encountered.

This 1,200 pound leatherback was first documented as nesting on our beaches in 2001 and has returned to Loggerhead Marinelife Center’s monitored beaches nearly 30 times since. Over the years, our research team has watched her journey unfold, documenting her nesting activity, tracking her life history, and witnessing her incredible resilience.

Juno tells the story of a life spent navigating an increasingly busy ocean. She bears the scars of past interactions with boats and fishing gear, including a large, healed boat strike across her carapace and a scar on her left shoulder from a fisheries interaction. Yet despite these challenges, she continues to return to our shores to nest.

As Loggerhead Marinelife Center’s Vice President of Research, Dr. Justin Perrault, shared: “Each time she returns offers a new chapter in her journey. Her story is a powerful reminder of both the fragility and tenacity of these animals, and the chance to see an old friend again. It has been four years since our last encounter.”

As sea turtle nesting season continues, please remember to slow down and stay alert while boating in coastal waters. The choices we make on the water can help ensure turtles like Juno continue returning to our beaches for generations to come. 💙🌊

What you leave behind can have a lasting impact on sea turtles like Bunny. 🐢🎣

Before arriving at our hospital, this green sea turtle ingested a fishing hook and line. After careful monitoring and supportive care from our veterinary team, Bunny successfully passed both items shown in these photos.

While Bunny’s story had a positive outcome, discarded fishing gear remains a serious threat to sea turtles. Hooks and fishing line can cause severe injuries, entanglement, and even death.

Help protect sea turtles by properly disposing of fishing line and tackle and practicing sea turtle-safe fishing every time you’re on the water.

Every piece of fishing line properly discarded can make a difference for those below. 🌊

Join us for the 2026 World Ocean Month Film Festival at Loggerhead Marinelife Center 🌊🎬

Taking place June 12th and 14th during World Sea Turtle Week, this year’s festival celebrates the power of ocean storytelling through film, science, art, and conservation.

Kick off the weekend on Friday evening with our exclusive VIP Premiere Package featuring the LMC premiere of 2026 International Ocean Film Festival selections, guest presentation from underwater photographer Gabriel Jensen, complimentary beverages, concessions, and access to our Oceanview Sky Deck throughout the event.

On Sunday, join us for World Ocean Month Family Film Day featuring films by Youth Driven Cinema in partnership with Inwater Research Group, followed by the featured screening of A Life Illuminated (2025) the extraordinary story of marine biologist Edith “Edie” Widder.

From breathtaking underwater perspectives to inspiring conservation narratives, experience the ocean through film, art, and science right here in Juno Beach. Tickets and information in bio.🐢

World Ocean Day Film Festival - Loggerhead Marinelife Center A selection of short films (featured below) centered on ocean conservation were shown with commentary by LMC host and local guest speakers, including underwater photographers, filmmakers and leaders in ocean conservation.

Did you know that each of these sea turtles are satellite tracked?  You can follow their journeys right from our website! 🐢📍

From crossing entire oceans to returning to familiar coastlines, these turtles help our research team better understand sea turtle behavior, migration patterns, and conservation needs.

Find your birth month’s turtle and learn more about the incredible journeys happening beyond the shoreline. 🌊

Visit our website to explore all of our tracked turtles and follow their travels in real time!

A Different Kind of Listening: Leatherback Encounters” 🐢🌕

Jen Reilly, Loggerhead Marinelife Center’s Senior Biologist and Deaf sea turtle biologist, shares a reflection on finding connection with nesting leatherback sea turtles through touch, presence, and the powerful vibrations felt beneath her hands.

Read her story below:

I’ve worked with leatherback sea turtles for over ten years now - this is my 12th season monitoring these same beaches.

For years, I heard my research team describe the sounds leatherbacks make while nesting - deep breaths, grunts, low, unmistakable noises. Being Deaf, I could only imagine them through footage and descriptions.

Last season, that changed.

As I worked up a massive female and ran my measuring tape across her carapace, I suddenly felt a vibration beneath my hands.

I froze.

That was it.

Not something I heard - but something I felt.
A connection I had only imagined for years.
And honestly, it meant everything.

I felt every deep rumble as she breathed and shifted her ~1,000-pound body. Each vibration brought the moment to life in a way words can’t fully capture. I was completely over the moon.

This nesting season, under a full moon in complete darkness, I experienced it again.

Another leatherback.
The same quiet, powerful feeling beneath my hands.

A reminder that connection doesn’t always come through sound - it can come through touch, presence, and attention.

I’m deeply grateful to my research team for creating an inclusive, accessible field environment where I can grow as a Deaf biologist in this work.

And if there’s one thing I hope this story makes clear, it’s this:

There is space in marine biology and conservation for Deaf and hard-of-hearing people, and for anyone who has ever felt like they don’t fit the “traditional” idea of a biologist.

The ocean speaks in many ways.
Sometimes, you just have to feel it.

These are the faces you are voting for! 🐢

From tiny hatchlings to resilient rehabilitation patients, every turtle at LMC represents why this work matters.

We’re proud to be nominated for ‘s 2026 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards for Best Free Attraction, and with your help, we’re hoping to make it three years in a row at No. 1 🏆

Don’t forget, you can vote once a day through the link in the comment section. Every single vote helps us continue inspiring ocean conservation through the turtles in our care!