Previous page Next page  TCEP Ranger Training  |  Indotestudo Births  |  Adventures of Lucky Turtle  |  TCEP Expansion Staff News  |  Stolen Turtles Recovered  |  New Wildlife Trade Guide  |  Turtle Trade Journal Cat Tien Yields No Turtles  |  Cuora Listed Under CITES  |  U Minh Reptile & Amphibian Survey Future of Hoan Kem Turtle  |  Acknowledgements TCEP Staff News (updated October 2000) Le Thien Duc and fellow Terrapin Recovery Program intern Jean Doherty measure a juvenile head-started diamondback terrapin in preparation for its release. TCEP Turtle Ecologist Trains at Wetlands Institute      In July–August, Project Turtle Ecologist Le Thien Duc traveled to the United States for an eight-week training program at the Wetlands Institute (in Stone Harbor, New Jersey), working with the diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin).      Serious declines in southern New Jersey’s terrapin population, due to increased mortality from roadkills and drowning in crab traps, prompted the launching of the Terrapin Recovery/Turtle Ecology Program. Under the direction of Dr. Roger Wood, the program has developed techniques to incubate and hatch eggs recovered from road-killed terrapins, after which the hatchlings are head started and released. In addition, the program’s ongoing studies have proven the effectiveness of terrapin excluder devices to prevent drowning in crab traps. Recently sonic telemetry is being employed to track terrapin movement.      Le Thien Duc’s participation in the program was funded and organized by William Espenshade of the Philadelphia Zoo, in cooperation with Dr. Roger Wood and the Wetlands Institute. Mr. Duc is now initiating his Masters program on an aspect of turtle ecology. He will participate in a planned radio-telemetry study of the impressed tortoise (Manouria impressa) early in 2001. Nguyen Van Truong Joins the TCEP      Nguyen Quang Truong, a young herpetologist from the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources (IEBR) has joined the TCEP as the project’s associate field herpetologist. Mr. Truong has conducted herpetological field studies at Pu Mat Nature Reserve (Nghe An), and has worked on projects for the American Museum of Natural History. Truong has a special interest in turtles and will be involved in translocation site assessments, a proposed Manouria radio telemetry project, and possibly efforts to locate a rumored population of Rafetus in on the Red River delta.      In September Truong traveled to the United States where he examined specimens at the Los Angeles Musuem and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. During his stay in New York, he visited the Wetlands Institute in southern New Jersey, where he had the opportunity to test the sonic telemetry equipment Le Thien Duc had used during his summer internship there. In this photo Truong is holding a submerged microphone to detect sound being emitted from a small battery-operated broadcast unit attached to the shell of a diamondback terrapin. New TCEP Staff Ecologist to Work with Turtles      The project welcomes Mr. Nguyen The Cuong as the project’s second turtle ecologist. Cuong recently graduated from the Xuan Mai Forestry College and initially volunteered for the project to pursue his interest in turtles. Mr. Cuong took over responsibilities for the project’s resident turtle ecologist, Le Thien Duc, during Duc’s eight-week training tour at the Wetlands Institute in the United States.