The Sea Turtle Grants Program (STGP), funded by the sale of Florida’s “Helping Sea Turtles Survive” specialty license plate, recently awarded $490,892.07 to 30 different projects benefiting Florida sea turtles as part of the 2023-2024 grant funding cycle. Since it’s inception, the Sea Turtle License Plate Grants Program has awarded more than $7 million to conservation projects.

Each year, the Sea Turtle Grants Program distributes money to coastal county governments, educational and research institutions and nonprofit groups through a competitive application process. The sea turtle specialty license plate is also the primary source of funding for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Marine Turtle Protection Program.

The following organizations received grants for their approved projects for the 2023-2024 cycle:

• Clearwater Marine Aquarium: Endoscopy Equipment for Clearwater Marine Aquarium
• Florida State University: Using Passive Acoustic Monitoring to Determine Exposure Levels of Marine Turtles to Vessels in North-Western, Florida
• Loggerhead Marinelife Center: Support for Critically Ill Sea Turtles in Rehabilitation
• Miami-Dade County Parks & Rec Dept: Miami-Dade County Sea Turtle Conservation Program Mobile Conservation Unit
• Sea Turtle Conservancy: A Legal and Policy History of Sea Turtle Conservation in Florida
• Inwater Research Group: Information to Protect Florida’s Most Valuable and Vulnerable Sea Turtles from Vessel Strikes: Year-One Surveys and Gulf Coast Hot-Spot Identification
• Brevard County Environmentally Endangered Lands Program: Displays at the Barrier Island Center telling the interconnecting stories of Doc Ehrhart, his students, sea turtles and the Carr Refuge
• Nova Eisenhower Elementary: Student Scientists for Sea Turtle Conservation
• Gulfarium C.A.R.E. Foundation: Gulfarium C.A.R.E. Center Flexible Endoscope
• Friends of St. Joseph State Parks: UTV for T.H. Stone Memorial St. Joseph Peninsula State Park Sea Turtle Surveys
• Inwater Research Group: Characterizing the Diet of Pier-Hooked Green Turtles
• Stella Maris Environmental Research: Crawl Scene Investigation (CSI): Measuring Hatchling Mortality from Artificial Lighting
• Zoo Miami Foundation: Water Quality and Hospital Equipment
• Loggerhead Marinelife Center: Investigating clutch frequency and inter-nesting habitat for a globally important loggerhead rookery: Year 4
• Sea Turtle Conservancy: Threats to Sea Turtles Mobile Educational Display
• University of Central Florida: Equipment to continue a long-term juvenile marine turtle population structure and abundance study.
• The Florida Aquarium: Expanding Temporary Capacity at The Florida Aquarium’s Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Center
• The Turtle Hospital: Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Ultrasound System
• Florida State Parks Foundation: Sea Turtle Data Collection UTVs
• Florida State Parks Foundation: Sea Turtle Education Kits
• Loggerhead Marinelife Center: Global positioning system units for Loggerhead Marinelife Center’s nesting beach monitoring
• Mote Marine Lab: Bacterial Dynamics of Newly Identified Dermatitis in Green Turtles (Chelonia mydas) on Florida’s Gulf Coast
• Gulfarium C.A.R.E. Foundation: Gulfarium C.A.R.E. Center Necropsy Suite and Rehab Bins
• Florida Atlantic University: Swimming kinematics to understand neonate sea turtle dispersal
• Univsersity of Florida: Integrative assessment of Fibropapillomatosis dynamics in free roaming green turtles (Chelonia mydas) from the Northeastern Gulf of Mexico
• University of Central Florida: Late-Season Sea Turtle Nesting in Central and South Brevard County, Florida, Year 3
• City of Miami Beach: Turtle Friendly Lighting Education Campaign
• Miami-Dade County Parks & Rec Dept: Miami-Dade County Sea Turtle Conservation Program Mobile Education Unit
• University of Florida – Whitney Lab: Critical Surgical Equipment for Intensive Care
• East Coast Biologists, Inc: Keep on tracking! Passive acoustic telemetry is a vital tool for detecting movement patterns and resource-use by east Florida’s immature sea turtles