Christian Gredzens, PhD student, will begin the next phase of his dissertation work looking at the interaction between the recreational scallop fishery and marine turtles within the Crystal River, FL area. With the help of his research assistants, he will be interviewing recreational scallopers at boat ramps within the area to find out what motivates them to come to the area and their knowledge of local turtle populations. He will also be watching the movements of his tagged turtles in the area to see if there are any changes in movement patterns and distributions with the increase of boat traffic and human use which comes along with the influx of scallopers to the area. Over the past six weeks, several of his turtles have taken residence within some of the primary scalloping grounds. Now we wait and see what happens. Keep checking for updates on his project in the coming months. He would like to thank the Sea Turtle Conservancy for partially funding this project through the Sea Turtle License Plate Grants Program.
