A travel writer whose feature on sea turtles appeared first in the Red Deer Advocate has won an award for the story.
Carol Patterson’s story, Turtles With Jobs, won second place in the 2016 Travel Media Association of Canada’s Best Environmental/Responsible Tourism Feature. It was published in the Advocate originally on Jan 23, 2016.
The story is about sea turtles and scientific efforts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service in Galveston to help create devices that help the turtles escape from fishing nets that kill hundreds of thousands around the world every year.
Patterson explained in the story that to reduce the carnage, all U.S. federally regulated nets must have a turtle excluder device and loggerhead turtles are raised to test TEDs. “Hatched from eggs taken from wild turtles, these turtles are carefully raised, doing a small amount of research before being released back to the wild,” he article said.