A TEEN’S MISSION TO PROTECT FLORIDA’S WILDLIFE

Meet Daily Point of Light Award honoree John Carl Tilghman. Read his story, and nominate an outstanding volunteer or family as a Daily Point of Light.

John Carl Tilghman was just 10 years old when his mission to protect Florida’s wildlife began. While enjoying a cross-country trip with his family, John Carl discovered the national park they visited was covered in trash. Horrified by the litter and its negative effects on wildlife, he and his brother decided to take action.

They founded Conservation Brothers, an organization dedicated to hands-on conservation and long-term preservation of natural resources. Several years later, the duo hasn’t looked back.

Now a rising high school junior, John Carl has become a steward of environmental activism in his community. In his job as a deckhand on a charter boat, John Carl constantly finds animals like fish, sea turtles and pelicans entangled in fishing line, which is often fatal. He works diligently to detangle each animal and set them free, and builds monofilament fishing line receptacle bins that are placed at marinas and docks to help prevent harm to fish, birds and marine wildlife before it starts.

He also plans and implements all of Conservation Brothers’ service activities, whether it’s teaching fishing clinics, building duck nesting boxes or hosting shoreline cleanups. One of his proudest achievements is the annual construction of wood duck boxes in the local wetlands. Since each nesting box can produce up to two broods of 12 to 15 eggs each Spring, the Conservation Brothers team can contribute to the birth of up to 360 hatchlings annually. John Carl’s diligence is directly helping the Florida wildlife population thrive.

While John Carl is still in high school, his passion for volunteering with Conservation Brothers has already begun to inform his future. Because of his love for the outdoors, he’s considering exploring a career as a biologist or environmental engineer. Through his example, other young people can see how a mission to help others from a young age can catapult someone into the future exploration of their passions. No matter his age, his example is a great one for anyone to follow.

What inspired you to get started with this initiative?

My family does cross-country trips to all the national parks in the United States. On our first cross-country trip in 2017, we went on a hike, and all over the park, there was trash. My brother, the other founder of Conservation Brothers, and I came home and started talking about something we could do, and we came up with this idea for this nonprofit. My sister had a nonprofit as well, so we were already familiar with how to set it up. We decided to start Conservation Brothers.

Tell us about your volunteer role with Conservation Brothers.

Every day during the summer, I work offshore as a deckhand on a charter boat. Oftentimes, we’ll reel up fish that have gotten tangled and need to be thrown back. We’ll untangle them and get them back to health before we release them. I’ve had to assist in sea turtle rescues before at the dock. There was a massive sea turtle that had come inshore after being tangled up, and it was completely entangled in fishing line. They hoisted him out of the water and untangled him, and that’s what I see on a daily basis. I’ve rescued pelicans that were tangled in fishing line almost every single day at the dock. When I get on the boat, I’ll see pelicans standing on the dock that have fishing line wrapped around them. We’ll grab them, unhook them, take all the fishing line off them and set them free.

What are your long-term plans or goals for the organization?

Once I move on to college and begin the next chapter of my life, I have two little cousins, and they’re just involved with the outdoors as I am. I would like to move the duties of our nonprofit over to them for them to take over and carry out our mission.

What’s been the most rewarding part of your work?

I think the most rewarding part has been building wood duck nesting boxes. We have four of them in our backyard, and every spring we get to watch them hatch. We had a category five hurricane hit us in 2018, and that was the year after we started Conservation Brothers. It wiped out all the trees and nesting habitats for the wood ducks in our area. We researched and built four wood duck boxes, put them in our backyard, and every spring we will have more than twenty wood ducks in our pond raising their young. They can hatch up to 360 babies a year. We have a property in northern Florida, north of Panama City, and we put five out on that property in a cypress swamp. There’s a huge population of wood ducks that we have raised there from only maybe a dozen. Every time we look into that swamp, 50 or 60 ducks are swimming around.

What have you learned through your experiences as a volunteer?

I think I’ve learned the most about just how much effect humans have on wildlife. Between the discarding of fishing line into the waterways and littering, and what it means to do that. That’s what I’ve learned. It’s really brought me to the reality of what I do, and how much it affects, and how much I can help if I try to stop these things.

Why is it important for others to get involved with causes they care about?

I think everybody needs a passion that they should pursue in life. What’s your calling in life? I think everybody needs to have something that they pursue that can assist with their day-to-day life. For me, it was helping wildlife, because on a daily basis, I experience wildlife in the outdoors.

Any advice for people who want to start volunteering?

I think the best thing you can do is go online, do a quick Google search in your area and find out what your opportunities are in that area. Conservation Brothers hosts beach cleanups once a month. We clean out all our monofilament bins, and we post about that stuff frequently. We hold fishing clinics annually. If somebody around here has a passion similar to ours, they can search for something along those lines, and our information will pop up, and they can come get involved.

What do you want people to learn from your story?

I think everybody needs to learn the impact they have. Their influence is what I want people to realize from this. Everybody can make a difference. It seems like you might not be able to assist at all, but I’ve seen firsthand how much I have helped our wildlife around here with my brother.

Do you want to make a difference in your community like John Carl? Find local volunteer opportunities.