KSC-2010-4191

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- In a secure, climate-controlled facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, newly-hatched Loggerhead turtles emerge from their eggs brought from beaches along the northern U.S. Gulf Coast. The eggs will be monitored by biologists and hatchery workers until incubation is complete. The hatchlings will be released at different points along a 100-mile stretch of the Atlantic Ocean shoreline. That includes beaches adjacent to the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which is located inside Kennedy. The release and relocation work is part of an effort by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the National Park Service, NOAA, FedEx and conservationists to help minimize the risk to this year's sea turtle hatchlings from impacts of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This plan involves carefully moving an anticipated 700 nests during the next several months. Photo credit: NASA_Troy Cryder