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2024 Behler and Pritchard Turtle Conservation Awards

By Anders G.J. Rhodin, Rick Hudson, Vivian Páez, Peter Paul van Dijk, and Andrew Walde Co-Chairs and Vice-Chairs, Behler Turtle Conservation Award Committee

This year the 19th annual Behler Turtle Conservation Award celebrates and honors Jeffrey E. Lovich. Jeff is a Research Ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, Southwest Biological Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. Raised in Virginia, he attended George Mason University, where he met Carl Ernst and started studying turtles, earning an M.S. in biology with Carl as his major advisor. He then attended the University of Georgia for a Ph.D., where he was mentored by Whit Gibbons and Justin Congdon at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, working on the causes and consequences of sexual size dimorphism in turtles. Subsequently, Jeff wrote two editions of books on turtles of the United States and Canada with Carl, and a recent book on turtles of the world with Whit.

Jeff has been publishing the results of research on the ecology and taxonomy of turtles and other wildlife for 40 years, resulting in over 200 scientific publications and five books. Along the way he described and named four turtle taxa, including three in the US and one in Japan. Most of his research is in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts of California where he has worked for over 30 years. He is a Fulbright Scholar and an elected Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, the world’s oldest active biological society. Jeff has been one of the editors of Chelonian Conservation and Biology for over 10 years. His continuing research focuses on all aspects of turtle ecology, and the impacts of utility-scale wind and solar energy development on wildlife, especially desert tortoises. Jeff is a well-respected member of our global chelonian conservation and biology community and highly deserving of the Behler Turtle Conservation Award, and we are pleased to finally honor him with this major award at this time.

We also honor four Pritchard Turtle Conservation Lifetime Achievement Awardees this year, all for their outstanding longterm contributions to turtle conservation and biology: Patricia Koval for her key impact on the development, growth, and governance of Turtle Survival Alliance, notably her instrumental support of the Turtle Survival Center, while also being a longterm active champion of global wildlife conservation efforts with other organizations; Herilala Randriamahazo for his longterm conservation efforts focused on Radiated Tortoises and heading up the TSA program in Madagascar; Elliott Jacobson for his outstanding herpetological veterinary expertise, research, and many reptile publications, notably on turtles and tortoises, and mentoring many herpetological veterinarians; and Terry Graham for his longterm ecological studies on New England turtles, notably his early research and efforts to safeguard the Plymouth Red-bellied Turtle population in Massachusetts with an innovative headstarting program and promotion of its federal protection. We thank all of you for your lifetime dedication, perseverance, and achievement in making a major difference for turtles.

We also remember and honor Mehmet Atatür of Turkey, who passed recently, with a Posthumous Turtle Conservation Appreciation Award for his longterm conservation work and seminal publications on Turkey’s chelonians.

The IUCN SSC Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group and Turtle Survival Alliance are joined by the Turtle Conservancy and the Turtle Conservation Fund as co-presenters of the Behler and Pritchard awards, bringing together four turtle conservation organizations closely tied to both John Behler’s and Peter Pritchard’s legacies. Additional support for the Behler Award and its honorarium is also gratefully received from the following generous co-sponsors: Re:wild, Andrew Sabin Family Foundation, Chelonian Research Foundation, Surprise Spring Foundation, George Meyer, Brett Stearns, Judith Behler Howells, and Deb Behler.

Congratulations, Jeff, Pat, Herilala, Elliott, and Terry, and thank you all for your major efforts on behalf of turtles and their conservation—your recognition as Behler and Pritchard Honorees is most highly deserved!

Header image: (from left) 2024 Awardees Elliott Jacobson, Pat Koval, Jeff Lovich, and Herilala Randriamahazo. Images courtesy of Kathleen Dreier Photography.