Showcase On...Belize!

Since it is cold and a little dreary this month, let's focus on what's coming up in June of this year! Each year Dr. Jody Terrell teaches a field course at Hugh Parkey's Adventure Lodge in Belize. This year's course will run from June 19th to June 26th and is limited to 25 students. The official Course Description states:

Students participate in hands-on field study. A combination of instruction in both general marine mammal ecology and specifics about bottlenose dolphins and Antillean manager, Loggerhead turtles and the coral reefs in Belize will be discussed. We will also learn field assessment methods for dolphins, manatees, and turtles their habitat, including GPS use and basic GIS location mapping, and talk about conservation issues in an isolated tropical ecosystem. The class goal is to provide participants a focused, comprehensive knowledge of marine mammal ecology along with the environmental health issues facing our oceans and coral reefs today.

The course is actually part of a long term project to relocate Queen Conch to a designated area within the Hugh Parkey premises. Previously participants in the course have located an appropriate new area for a conch "ranch", collected conch from the ocean floor, and relocated them into the new "ranch". In the upcoming course, students will be retagging conch and conducting research on egg sacs.

Detailed information on the upcoming course is available here: http://www.twu.edu/health-studies/ (see the Belize 2012.pdf)