Proceedings of the Thirty-Sixth Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation

The 36th Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation was held in the City of Lima, Peru from February 29 to March 4, 2016. This year the Symposium’s theme was Crossroads, highlighting the need for multi-disciplinary, multi-taxa, multi-national, and multi-gender efforts in advancing marine conservation worldwide. This meeting aimed to break down barriers and boundaries between people and countries in order to achieve marine conservation through its most global flagship, the sea turtle. The structure of the symposium was similar to past symposia, with pre-symposium workshops and regional meetings, plus 3 days of symposium meetings. Overall the meeting was a success from basically every perspective; details are offered below.
A total of 685 people from 52 countries registered for the Symposium. The venue for the symposium was the Maria Angola Convention Center in the city of Lima. A total of 155 oral papers and 305 posters were presented at the symposium.
Pre-symposium Workshops & Regional Meetings: Several workshops and meetings were scheduled during the two days prior to the symposium main days. The opening was presented by Sonia Valle Rubio, representative from Cientifica del Sur University, Larry B. Crowder and Joanna Alfaro. A total of 12 workshops were held. These were: In-water capture techniques, GIS Training, Marine mammals, Elasmobranchs, Ghost Fisheries, Survey training, Temperature-dependent Sex Determination (TSD), Photo-Identification techniques, Turtle Medicine, Leatherback Turtles of the Southeast Pacific, Environmental education and Bycatch of Sea turtles in the East Pacific. etc