Vanessa Bezy

Vanessa Bezy

Mar 28, 2016

Group 6 Copy 146
0

How did I get here? The short version of my story.

Well, its a long story. But I think I the idea grew from the time I was 6 years old and I had a "Flipper" themed birthday party that I wanted to be a marine biologist. When I watched "The Voyage of the Mimi" in my fourth grade science class, I was certain about it. And as absurd as "marine biologist" sounded next to all of the "doctors" and "lawyers" in my middle-school classes, as many times as outsiders told me "well there is no money/there are no jobs in that," my close friends and family were always explicitly supportive of my dreams and ambitions.

Once I started my Bachelors degree in marine biology, my passion for marine conservation grew and it wasn't until I decided to spend the summer abroad in Costa Rica getting experience with conservation that the sea turtles came into the picture. And then I fell in love. Not just with the sea turtles, but with the entire experience of it. The rustic lifestyle, the passion, the hard-work and manual labor, the international community of volunteers and scientists, the connection between land and water, the connection to the bigger picture of marine and wildlife conservation.

(This is a photo of me after one of my first sea turtle sightings ever. The little blotch in the right part of the photo is a turtle butt. We took the photo after the turtle was finished nesting as she was returning back to sea.)

While I take pride in being branded the "turtle lady," my work with sea turtles is not just about sea turtles; it is about marine conservation and connecting people with nature. My work is about conservation biology, community outreach and education. The turtles are just a charismatic organism that I have the great privilege to study and have access to as a tool for inspiring change!

To read more about me and my story, visit my website and especially my blog post titled "For the love of turtles."

0 comments

Join the conversation!Sign In

About This Project

During the mass nesting of sea turtles, thousands of turtles emerge from the ocean to lay their eggs along a small stretch of beach. Despite our fascination with this natural phenomenon, almost nothing is known about how sea turtles manage to synchronize their behavior in this way. Our experiment will test whether sea turtles use olfactory cues to coordinate mass nesting behavior. Our results will inform conservation management to protect the future of this incredible natural phenomenon.

More Lab Notes From This Project

Blast off!

Browse Other Projects on Experiment

Related Projects

Urban Pollination: sustain native bees & urban crops

Bee activity on our crop flowers is crucial to human food security, but bees are also declining around the...

Wormfree World - Finding New Cures

Hookworms affect the lives of more than 400,000,000 men, women and children around the world. The most effective...

Viral Causes of Lung Cancer

We have special access to blood specimens collected from more than 9,000 cancer free people. These individuals...

Campaign Ended

A biology project funded by 18 people

Add a comment