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California Turtle and Tortoise Club
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Mike’s Turtle Net Picks
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A varied selection of recent articles, stories and sites on
the Web that some of you may find as interesting as I did.
The links are listed by the
relevant issue of the Tortuga Gazette.
Please note that all links were
functioning when posted. My apologies if any are no longer available.
Tortuga Gazette 46#1, January/February 2009
Track Sea Turtles On Line
You too can have fun tracking sea turtles and many other species thanks to
SEATURTLE.ORG.
Labrador Tracks Red-eared
Sliders
Labrador trained to sniff out alien red-eared sliders to protect Australian
native turtles.
Recent Desert Tortoise Surveys
Most recent report of range-wide monitoring of Mojave Desert Tortoise
populations from the Desert Tortoise Recovery Office.
Epic Tale of a Greek Tortoise
Greek tortoise was captured during World War I by a Gallipoli survivor and
brought back to New Zealand.
Darwin's Missing Notes
English Heritage seeks help to find missing Darwin notes.
It Could Happen to Anyone…
There was lots of coverage of a 400-pound tortoise named Mary not being a
"she" after all. This version of the story comes with a slide show.
Tortuga Gazette 45#6, November/December 2009
Sonoran Desert Tortoise Video
Tucson Fox News video on the Sonoran desert tortoise petition finding.
Fort Irwin Desert Tortoise
Translocation Plan On Hold
The BLM will revise its environmental review of the Army's proposal to move
1,000 desert tortoises onto public lands.
Come, Thou Tortoise
Diane Baker Mason reviews Jessica Grant's comic novel, Come, Thou Tortoise.
Tortoise Diplomacy?
Seychelles "donates" two giant tortoises to Shanghai Expo.
Turtle-Killing Fish
How buying six types of fish encourages the death of hundreds of loggerhead
sea turtles.
Tortuga Gazette 45#5, September/October 2009
Ivanpah
Valley Tortoise Habitat
Great Basin and Range Watch's photo log of desert habitat threatened by
power plants.
Sonoran
Desert Tortoise Challenges Developers
Proposed listing of the Sonoran desert tortoise generates controversy.
Twin
Twin Star Tortoises…
Muenster Zoo hatches two sets of star tortoise twins.
Albino
Green Sea Turtle
Photograph of an albino hatchling green sea turtle.
Trinidad
Turtle Heroine
Trinidad activist saves leatherback sea turtle rookery.
Tortuga Gazette 45#4, July/August 2009
Do Solar Right
Send a message to promote solar energy while minimizing environmental damage.
Tortoise Fitted with Toupee
Lots of media coverage of this injured tortoise. Photographs illustrate another use
for duct tape.
Ascension Island Blog
Field biologist’s daily blog from green sea turtle study site.
Have You Seen a Live Sea turtle?
International Sea Turtle Observation Registry allows you to post your
sighting of a sea turtle and view a map of recent observations.
ESA Consultation Reinstated
Secretaries Salazar and Locke restore the requirement for government agencies
to undertake scientific
consultations to protect endangered species.
Volunteer Efforts Help Hawaii Hawksbill Turtles
Increased Hawaiian hawksbill sea turtle nesting is evidence that protection
is finally paying off.
Ploughshare Tortoises Poached
Another theft of these critically endangered Madagascan tortoises.
Tortuga Gazette 45#3, May/June 2009
New York Reptile Poaching Ring Bust
17 people charged in reptile (including snapping turtles) poaching probe.
Surprise in Surprise Arizona
Tortoise Poses Midday Traffic Hazard - Hercules Escapes While Owners At Zoo.
The Galapagos Islands From Space
The Galapagos Islands were NASA MODIS Image of the Day on March 7, 2009.
Keeping Tabs on Wildlife Park’s Wildlife
Not strictly tortoise related although Aldrabra Tortoises get a mention,
this fun article talks about the annual inventory of critters at England’s
Cotswold Wildlife Park.
David Snow
Homage to David Snow, one of the founders of the Charles Darwin Research Center.
Tour around Darwin's Galapagos
BBC video and other materials from the Galapagos including video of Lonesome George.
Science Restored
Interesting editorial in the Journal Nature on President Obama's pledge to set US science in its rightful place.
Tortuga Gazette 45#2, March/April 2009
The Complete Works of Charles Darwin
2009 marks the 150th Anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s “On the
Origin of Species”. You can read it here for free along with all the other
important works he penned.
Eating the Wild
New York Times Opinion Piece on human culinary habits.
The Tortoise and the Sun
Salon.com article on the desert tortoise and solar energy developments billed
as “a showdown among environmentalists out West, where proposed solar-energy
plants threaten the desert ecosystem”.
President Bush as Shiva?
In this Podcast titled “Bush the Destroyer, Bush the Creator” Gordy Slack
compares the outgoing President to the destroyer-creator god “Shiva” – for
eviscerating the Endangered Species Act while also creating the largest ocean
preserve in history as he leaves office. The ocean preserve is home to many
endangered sea turtles.
Encyclopedia of Life
The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) is an ambitious project to organize and make
available virtually all information about life present on Earth.
Over the Sea to Skye…
Scotland may be too cold for turtles these days but the Isle of Skye has
provided paleontologists with evidence of the earliest aquatic turtles in the
form of four complete and two incomplete fossils of a turtle named Eileanchelys
waldmani.
How the turtle's shell evolved
A newly discovered fossil from China sheds light on how the turtle's shell
evolved. The fossil aquatic turtle, Odontochelys semitestacea, only had a shell
covering its plastron.
Tortuga Gazette 45#1, January/February 2009
New Home of the Nature Protection Trust of Seychelles
The site features pictures and articles on many of the
rediscovered, long believed extinct Seychelles giant tortoises and the rare
Seychelles side-necked turtles.
Gilbert White's Pet Tortoise
Interesting, scholarly discussion of the tortoises of the
genus Testudo.
Skeleton Of 12,000-Year-Old Shaman Discovered Buried With 50 Tortoises
One of many stories covering the archeological discovery of
an early Middle Eastern shaman whose burial offers a fascinating twist on the
value stone-age man placed on chelonians.
How the turtle's shell evolved
A newly discovered fossil from China sheds light on how the turtle's shell
evolved. The fossil turtle, Odontochelys semitestacea, was probably aquatic and
only had a shell covering its plastron.
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CTTC welcomes your
Net Picks suggestions.
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