Sea Turtle Festival draws festive crowd
The heat in George Core Park on Sunday afternoon was stifling, but even that couldn’t keep down the crow, who turned out by the thousands to raise awareness for nesting sea turtles.
The Forgotten Coast Sea Turtle Festival, which is held around the Fourth of July every year, aims to educate attendees about sea turtles and the importance of the coastal habitats they and many other species call home.
This year, almost 40 vendors and several food trucks participated in the event – alongside 11 educational booths, at which turtles swam up to guests in glass tanks.
Live music was intermittently interrupted for informative turtle talks, which discussed several local species of turtle and the important roles they play in the Florida ecosystem, and dance demonstrations.
“We send our greatest thanks to our wonderful attendees, vendors, sponsors, and volunteers for making this year’s 7th Annual Forgotten Coast Sea Turtle Festival a huge success,” said the Florida Coastal COnservancy, who hosts the festival each year, in a Facebook post.
“We saw beautiful artwork; tasted delicious treats; listened to great music; swayed with hula dancers; aaarrgghed with pirates; met beautiful mermaids; and, most of all, learned about and celebrated all things turtle.”
Meet the Editor
David Adlerstein, The Apalachicola Times’ digital editor, started with the news outlet in January 2002 as a reporter.
Prior to then, David Adlerstein began as a newspaperman with a small Boston weekly, after graduating magna cum laude from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He later edited the weekly Bellville Times, and as business reporter for the daily Marion Star, both not far from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
In 1995, he moved to South Florida, and worked as a business reporter and editor of Medical Business newspaper. In Jan. 2002, he began with the Apalachicola Times, first as reporter and later as editor, and in Oct. 2020, also began editing the Port St. Joe Star.