Here's why people have to help the sea turtles on their journey:

Lights from houses and buildings near the beach confuse the turtles and the vibrations from passing cars cause them to turn from the waves and towards the road. If left to their own devices fewer than the 1 in 500 would survive.

So humans step in to remedy the troubles they’ve caused. They build cages tight enough to keep the critters out, but with a wire mesh wide enough to allow the babies to crawl through. They watch the nests carefully to signs of dimpling – an indication that things have started to happen under the surface. They surround the nest with a plastic runway to guide the babies to their journey to the sea. They sweep the runway to make it smooth. They chase the birds and crabs away so that at least that one part of the turtles’ lives is safe from harm.

What they don’t do is help the turtles dig to the surface from the sandy nest. They don’t pick up the turtles and carry them to the water, nor are they allowed to carry them out past the breaking waves to the calmer water further out. They can guide and prepare their journey, but they can’t make the journey for them.

Finally, if a nest hatches and 72 hours pass, the rules set by the sea turtle police (I’m thinking Fish and Wildlife, but I’m not sure) allow one final, last ditch form of help from the sea turtles’ human helpers. Volunteers dig up the nest to rescue the few stragglers that remain on the bottom. Without the human helpers they wouldn’t have had a chance. They would’ve died without ever seeing the light of day. They wouldn’t have even had the possibility of that 1 in 500.

So we saw a sea turtle hatch, allowing the kids to stay up way past their bedtime, and then we went back to the condo to put them to bed. Those little black bodies emerging from the sand played and replayed in my memory, as well as the careful ministrations of all the volunteers standing around, camping out even, waiting to play their small part to help these creatures on their journey to the sea.

I couldn’t help but make the parallel between the actions of the human helpers and our roles as parents. Isn’t what the volunteers do for the turtles what we do as parents every day? And as adoptive parents, aren’t we doing what our children’s first parents couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do for their offspring? We are smoothing the way, preparing the runway to independence, helping them on their journey…and if we’ve done a good job, if they were healthy and not crushed by their circumstances when they come to us, if they can dodge the predators and swim out into the calmer waters of adulthood…then they’ll make it.

But with a lot better odds than 1 in 500…

(image from conocophillips.com)