Greencastle, Ind. - "It's inspiring to work with people who are passionate about what they do," Wallace J. Nichols, senior scientist at the Ocean Conservancy and 1989 graduate of DePauw University, tells California's Santa Barbara Independent. Dr. Nichols is quoted in a story on the recent concurrent meetings of the International Sea Turtle Symposium, and Grupo Tortuguero in Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico.
Grupo Tortuguero was founded by Nichols, who served as president of this year's event. the organization is "a group of scientists, conservationists, fishermen, and indigenous peoples who have been working together since 1999 to create conservation strategies that can help both the turtles and local populations living near nesting beaches," the newspaper reports.
The Independent points out that this year's Grupo Tortuguero meeting was incorporated into the International Sea Turtle Symposium. "There's something about the way we're doing [Grupo Tortuguero] that we don't lose anybody," Nichols says. "It just keeps on getting bigger and bigger, and people keep coming back to these meetings. You've got to make it fun and make it feel like a family reunion that people can't miss. There's some magic to it that I don't really understand."
Read more here