Florida Keys organizations have been working for decades to raise awareness of sea turtles and their needs.

For example, the Save-a-Turtle organization, formed in 1985, focuses on the protection of rare and endangered marine turtles, their nesting grounds and their habitat.

Save-a-Turtle is a volunteer nonprofit group whose activities include surveying local beaches to monitor and document turtle nesting information, working with local municipalities to keep nesting beaches safe and friendly for turtles, spearheading beach cleanups of nesting areas and performing educational outreach to increase awareness of light pollution and other issues affecting sea turtles.

Since 1986, sea turtles have been cared for in the Keys through the efforts of Marathon's
Turtle Hospital, where a dedicated team runs the world's only certified hospital of its kind.

Turtles with a variety of injuries and ailments are brought to the hospital for treatment, rehabilitation and release to the wild. If a release isn't possible, the creatures become permanent residents. Educational tours of the facility are offered to introduce visitors to the resident sea turtles and to the hospital's curative programs for loggerhead, green, hawksbill and Kemp's ridley turtles.

Nature television show host Jack Hanna, left, and Hanna's wife Suzi, center, help Richie Moretti, right, director of The Turtle Hospital, examine a loggerhead sea turtle prior to its release in 2008 off the Keys. Photo by Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau