On the beaches of Topsail Island in North Carolina, the sight of a sea turtle crawling ashore has long signaled both urgency and hope. For many years, a woman with a clipboard and a watchful eye was often there to note every track and nest. What brought her there was grief. In 1991 her daughter, Karen, died of leukemia at the age of 29. She had made a final request of her mother that was simple and precise: “Do something good for sea turtles.” It was a young woman’s hope that the creatures she had come to love would somehow be cared for. The family had shared many late nights walking those beaches together, looking after nests and guiding hatchlings toward the water. After Karen’s death, Jean Beasley returned to that work not as a hobby but as a promise. She never framed it as sacrifice. “I loved every minute of what I did,” she said late in life. “Whether it was sea turtles or what it might be, I loved every minute of the teaching. I loved every minute of that old rotten building that we were in and trying to look after animals in.” There were challenges, she added, but “who hasn’t liked a good challenge?” Saving a single turtle mattered. But inspiring a child to love the ocean, and act accordingly, could mean saving thousands. Jean Beasley with the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center in Topsail Beach, N.C. releasing a juvenile loggerhead sea turtle…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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