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Baştan Savma Cevap Yarışı

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Baştan Savma Cevap Yarışı

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I'm doing the small animal sports rehab wet lab! and the freshman anatomy trivia!

Dr. Kimberly Stewart graduated from RUSVM not knowing that she would one day be back in St. Kitts making an incredible impact on the local community. She is known not only as Assistant Professor for Exotic Species, but also as the director of the St. Kitts Sea Turtle Monitoring Network, a nonprofit, community based organization she founded in 2003. But, trying to start a sea turtle conservation movement in a country whose fisherman still hunt the turtles for profit would prove to be more than challenging. After going alone to the Fisheries Co-op and getting to know the fisherman while taking measurements and data from their killed turtles, she slowly gained the trust of the fishermen. Dr. Stewart ventured on to show that her community outreach could change what was, once, a way of life and a culture of the island people.

In an effort to minimize the sea turtle harvest, non consumable sources of income are provided to communities. Stewart takes the equipment needed to make glass beads to fishermen and teach them the art of glass bead making. One of the reasons sea turtles are hunted here is so their shells can be used for making jewelry. Glass bottles that are collected during beach cleanups are recycled and used for this purpose instead. She also sets aside money from her grants in order to have paid positions within her organization. Theophilus Taylor, once the lead fisherman in sea turtle harvest in St. Kitts, would bring in 60 turtles per season. He is now a lead conservation technician and assists Stewart with radio tagging, monitoring, and even teaching at the sea turtle camps. When first given the opportunity to go back to his own primary school, he began his educational presentation with, “Did you know a sea turtle can carry a message around the world on its back?” Stewart remembers the moment and says, “…it brought tears to my eyes.”

Click the photo of recycled crayons to check out the SKSTMN's Facebook page.

In order to reach out to the younger community, she provides jugs for children to put their crayon stubs so that they can be recycled, melted into sea turtle shapes, and sold as new crayons to help fund the organization. She also organizes “Sea Turtle Camp” and provides enough funding for 100 students to attend. Known by the local children as the “turtle lady”, Stewart hand delivers applications in hard copy form and then picks them up a few weeks later, because “not every student may have a telephone, or computer, at home,” she says. At the camp, students are taught how the sea turtles are an important part of the ecosystem, and when they graduate from the camp they are invited on a leatherback nest excavation. Dr. Stewart has taken one of the sea turtle camp, and local high school, graduates under her wing. While he is enthusiastic about volunteering his time to the SKSTMN, he graduated school unable to read. She uses this as an opportunity to give back, by paying a tutor to teach him this invaluable ability, ultimately changing his life!

 “It’s not only about the conservation of the sea turtles, but also about instilling a whole new direction in the lives of these (the local) people.” Dr. Stewart went on to tell me about how these turtles are an important part of ecotourism for this community, whose economy relies primarily on tourism. She explained, she is trying to help them understand that sea turtles can be a sustainable source of income for their economy. While Dr. Stewart often appears on the local radio shows, at high school science fairs, and in the community fishery complex, she is working hard to help people see the turtles in “a different light”. And her work is paying off. A local beach has recently been designated as a protected nesting area for the turtles, and more sea turtle hunters are being converted into sea turtle saviors, like Theophilus.

Juvenile hawksbill sea turtle in St. Kitts. Photo by Katharine Garrido 2012. All rights reserved. — 

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"SAVMA President Bridget Heilsberg is getting ready to head to dinner with the AVMA Executive Board - what are some things you'd like her to bring up over the next three day meeting?"