fp Turks and Caicos

Five hundred students from the Osetta Jolly Primary School were fascinated by a special guest on Friday, Nov. 25, who spent the morning at the Blue Hills school talking turtles.

Twenty-one-year-old Zander Strodes has spent the last six months teaching children in Guatemala about turtle conservation. Over the past weekend, he took a break from that dedicated work to visit the Turks and Caicos Islands and share his passion about turtles with local children.

Zander was invited by the Nature Discovery Centre at Amanyara to give Turtle Talks to kids visiting the resort over the busy Thanksgiving Day weekend. The Nature Discovery Centre was created earlier this year to expose visiting guests to the islands’ natural environment. The centre organized for Zander to spend a half day with the students at the school talking about turtles.

“It is really important to me to visit with the school children and talk to them about why it is so important to protect turtles,” Zander told the fp.

At just 11 years old, Zander was inspired by a school teacher he met on the beach doing research and protecting turtles in his native Florida. At 14 he penned the book “Turtle Talks,” which he funded with grants and donations he solicited for his project.

He has spent his teen years travelling the world volunteering his time to schools and conservation initiatives protecting turtles and educating children all over the globe. His book has been printed in five languages, and more than 250,000 have been distributed free of charge to children in 25 countries.

 “I have been in Japan, Switzerland, India, all over, talking about turtles to children,” Zander explained.

Students from kindergarten to grade six listened intently to Zander talk turtles. Children asked a multitude of questions and diligently took notes during Zander’s approximately 30-minute presentation to each class.

“They take everything home, and I am sure they will share it with their families,” Zander said. “This is important information for them and their country.”

Amanyara’s Nature Discovery Centre has been participating in its own Turtle Initiative supporting a larger nationwide initiative to research turtles in local waters.

Amanyara Turtle Initiative helped capture, tag and release Taino, a sub-adult green turtle in August. The work is part of the TCI Turtle Project, a collaborative initiative involving the Department of Environment and Coastal Resources, the University of Exeter and coordinated by the Marine Conservation Society.

Amanyara supported the project by providing funding for the satellite transmitter tag which was applied to Taino’s shell. Amanyara Naturalist Lindsay Mensen took part in the process from capture to release.

With this tracking device, guests of Amanyara can participate in the global study of sub-adult turtles by tracking their migrations online. The TCI Turtle Project has successfully satellite tagged nine turtles in an effort to learn more about the behaviour of TCI’s turtles.

In previous years, the Turtle Project has been focusing on satellite tagging adult turtles, but this year’s project involved the tagging of three sub-adult green turtles and is the first study of its kind in the TCI.

“We will monitor Taino’s migration over the course of the year, and by doing this we are contributing groundbreaking research to a global study of the sub-adult turtles,” Mensen said.

Cutlines:
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Students clambered to get in as close as possible to hear Zander tell tales of turtle conservation and why we need to protect these precious creatures.
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Several students helped to demonstrate the qualities of turtles in a life-sized costume Zander created himself to help the children relate to the turtle.
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Taino was tagged in August, sponsored by Amanyara.