Every year, Sea Turtle Rescue Center cares for dozens of injured sea turtles that are washed ashore. After treatment and rehabilitation at the center, most of them are returned to their natural environment – the sea.
Why this work exists
Sea turtles that nest and feed along Israel’s Mediterranean coast are hit by boats, caught in fishing gear, and weakened by pollution and injury. When they wash ashore, they do not recover on the beach. They need veterinary care, quiet tanks, and time before they can go back.
The Sea Turtle Rescue Center takes in those animals. Staff treat wounds and illness, keep the turtles through rehabilitation, and release most of them to their natural environment — the sea. Your gift through American Friends of INHF Inc. pays for that chain of care: veterinary treatment, rehabilitation pools, and a safe return.
What a gift does
A donation here is not a general “wildlife” pledge. It funds the practical work of getting a living turtle from the shoreline back into the water: exams, medicine, holding pools, and the people who watch them until they are strong enough to leave. When a turtle goes back in, the work is quiet. The result is not.
American Friends is the U.S. 501(c)(3) that raises this support. The rescue and release happen in Israel, with our partners. We do not run the center from Fort Lee; we make sure U.S. donors can stand behind it with a tax-deductible gift.
How this fits the rest of the mission
Protecting endangered wildlife is one of our four pillars, alongside heritage, education, and the landscapes those species need. A turtle returned to the sea is the same idea as a mosaic kept readable or a class that learns a park by walking it: something irreplaceable, kept for the next generation.