2025 Adopt A Sea Turtle Nest Program Is OPEN! 

Outer Banks Forever is proud to be the official nonprofit partner of our Outer Banks national parks, helping you to protect and enhance Cape Hatteras National Seashore through our Adopt A Sea Turtle Nest program, along with many others. Cape Hatteras National Seashore extends more than 70 miles and covers over 30,000 acres from South Nags Head to the Ocracoke Inlet. Those miles of Seashore are monitored daily by National Park Service rangers who gather important data about the hundreds of sea turtle nests laid each year.

Five species of sea turtles tend to nest on our national seashore – Leatherback, Hawksbill (rare), Kemp’s Ridley (also rare), Loggerhead, and Green. In the summer of 2024, over 300 sea turtle nests were laid on the seashore, including rare Kemp’s Ridley and Leatherback sea turtle nests. We hope to see similar numbers this summer!

Through our Adopt A Sea Turtle Nest program, you can *symbolically adopt a sea turtle nest that is being monitored by National Park Service rangers at Cape Hatteras National Seashore and receive information about your specific nest when it hatches later in the summer or fall! There are a limited number of nests available to adopt each year, and they are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.

*No individual or group who participates in this program can claim ownership of a sea turtle nest, eggs, or hatchlings. Nature is also unpredictable. If your adopted nest is lost to a weather event or damaged by some other means, we will assign you a new nest that may or may not be shared with another individual or group.

Here’s How The Program Works: 

Donate! Give a tax-deductible donation of $100 or more to reserve your 2025 sea turtle nest. Your gift will help us fund important projects that protect and enhance Cape Hatteras National Seashore and the vital habitat it preserves.  

Get your nest! As nests become available for adoption, you will be assigned a nest and will receive an adoption certificate by mail or email with initial information about your nest. *Nest assignments begin in early June and will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.   

Wait patiently for your nest to hatch! When your nest hatches later in the summer or fall (average incubation time for our nests is 61 days), you will receive a personalized update in the mail with information National Park Service rangers collect about your nest, including the number of hatchlings that made their way out to sea. 

Below is our 2024 Sea Turtle Scoop – an exciting summary of all the nest and sea turtle statistics park rangers gathered during the 2024 nesting season! If you have any questions about this program, please get in touch with Nicole Erickson, our Development & Adoption Programs Manager, at: nicoleerickson@obxforever.org.