Donate $4 per person to one of the selected charities below to help wildlife affected by the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

This donation will be collected at the Miami Seaquarium ticket booth with a completed donation form.

For each $4 donation, you may purchase one Miami Seaquarium admission at a 40% discount.

Audubon Nature Institute

The Louisiana Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Rescue Program (LMMSTRP), coordinated by Audubon Aquarium of the Americas since 1993, has been designated as the primary responder for the rescue, rehabilitation, and release of all marine mammals (dolphins, whales and manatees) and sea turtles along the Louisiana coast.

Experts anticipate that the greatest number of animals affected will be sea turtles. Hundreds of sea turtles are expected to be stranded along Louisiana’s beaches in the upcoming days. Audubon is working closely with many other organizations including Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, NOAA, and the U.S. Coast Guard to monitor the situation and respond to stranded and injured marine wildlife.

A major challenge is the impact on the animal's natural environment and their long-term care. Because the animals cannot be immediately released back into their native habitat, they must be housed until they are relocated to a NOAA-approved site. The rescue and rehabilitation of each sea turtle is estimated at $5,000 for equipment, supplies, medication and veterinary staff time. Their length of their stay at Audubon Aquatic Center is impossible to predict, as is the duration of LMMSTRP’s oil spill response. Your support helps Audubon Nature Institute successfully meet this immediate crisis and sustain LMMSTRP for the long term.

National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) is a non-profit organization that preserves and restores our nation’s wildlife and habitats. Created by Congress in 1984, NFWF directs public conservation dollars to the most pressing environmental needs and matches those investments with private funds. We work with a full complement of individuals, foundations, government agencies, non-profits, and corporations to identify and fund the most intractable conservation challenges.

The tragedy of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has grave implications for tens of millions of shorebirds, waterfowl, marsh birds and other migratory species that depend on the Gulf coast for feeding, resting, and nesting. NFWF is working to provide refuge beyond the spill area through wetland restoration and enhancement, to increase survivorship of the birds that migrate through or overwinter in the region.

We are also focusing on sea turtles, because their feeding and nesting areas are critically affected. By protecting the greatest number of turtles possible in areas outside the spill—Kemp’s ridleys, loggerheads, hawksbills, leatherbacks and others—we can ensure a healthy population that can recover from the impact.

Learn more about our work at www.nfwf.org.

Sea to Shore Alliance

Sea to Shore Alliance was created with the expertise, passion, and vision to help reverse the degradation of our aquatic coastal environment and the loss of species diversity. Our network of specialists and scientists work globally to find solutions to reduce threats to endangered aquatic species, such as manatees, northern right whales and sea turtles, as well as protect or restore their coastal habitats. We search for those solutions through innovative technologies, exacting research, scientific collaboration, training, education, and the use of cross-disciplinary approaches and citizen participation.

Your donation translates directly to our work. For example: $1,500 funds the airplane, pilot, staff, and fuel to get S2S's experienced aerial observers off the Gulf Coast to look for marine life impacted by the oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Through the generous support of a donor, S2S was able to conduct a "pre-impact" aerial survey of Mobile Bay. Your support will allow us to expand these efforts! It is critically important now that oil is hitting the Gulf Coastline.

Sea to Shore Alliance is working with our partners at Dauphin Island Sea Lab (DISL), Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), and the US FIsh and Wildlife Service (FWS) to conduct emergency response aerial surveys within the inshore waters and coastline of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Our primary goal will be to record manatee numbers, locations and any indications of oil related stress or exposure. In addition, we will provide similar data for inshore sea turtles and bottlenose dolphins noted during our survey route. Following these "Emergency Response Surveys", we will begin conducting NRDA (Natural Resource Damage Assessmen) surveys.

Sea Turtle Conservancy

The Sea Turtle Conservancy, formerly known as the Caribbean Conservation Corporation, is the world's oldest sea turtle research and conservation group. An international nonprofit 501(c) 3 organization, Sea Turtle Conservancy was founded in 1959 by world-renowned sea turtle expert Dr. Archie Carr to save sea turtles from eminent extinction through rigorous science-based conservation. Headquartered in Florida, the organization carries out worldwide programs to conserve and recover sea turtle populations through research, education, advocacy and protection of the natural habitats upon which depend upon. Over the course of 50 years, Sea Turtle Conservancy's research programs s have yielded much of what is now known about sea turtles and the threats they face, and the organization is applying this knowledge to carry out the world's most successful sea turtle protection and recovery programs.

The current oil spill disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico is expected to have unprecedented economic and environmental impacts. Of immediate concern is the fate of hundreds of sea turtle nests that are being deposited right now by nesting loggerhead turtles along the north Gulf coast of Florida and Alabama. In response to this dire situation, federal and state officials, with input from the Sea Turtle Conservancy, have made a bold decision to relocate all of the nests from this part of the Gulf Coast to an incubation facility set up at the Kennedy Space Center on Florida’s east coast. The idea is to release the hatchlings into the Atlantic, where they have a far greater chance of surviving. Sea Turtle Conservancy is assisting with construction of the 1,500 or so modified coolers that will be used to hold and incubate the eggs, and in the coming weeks the organization will help with the excavation of nests and the release of hatchlings along the Atlantic coast. STC believes the protocol now in place will minimize any potential risks associated with moving the nests and will give tens of thousands of sea turtle hatchlings a fighting chance at survival.