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Marine Turtle Newsletter 94:14, © 2001

Marine Turtle Newsletter-Online

GIS Workshop

Michael S. Coyne
National Ocean Service, 1305 East-West Hwy, Silver Spring, MD 20910, USA (E-mail: mcoyne@seaturtle.org)

As part of the 21st Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, about 50 participants gathered for an informal workshop regarding the use of geographic information systems (GIS) in sea turtle research and conservation. This meeting was organized to bring together GIS users to discuss available software and resources. It was intended for those currently using GIS, who know what it is and what they can do with it, but need to know about some of the latest tools. Participants were encouraged to ask question and share experiences with the application of GIS to sea turtle research.

The workshop was kicked off by Mario Mota who gave an informative presentation with practical examples on how GIS is used to support NASA and their operations. The remainder of the workshop consisted primarily of a question and answer session dominated by questions related to data availability and software. As a reminder, there is a GIS resources page located at <https://seaturtle.org/gis/> containing many links to GIS data sources and software vendors. Anyone familiar with other useful resources is encouraged to contact Michael Coyne (details above).

As a follow-up to the workshop a GIS E-mail list has been created, hosted by seaturtle.org. The purpose of the mail list is to provide a forum for discussion of issues related to sea turtles and GIS. To join the list please contact Michael Coyne (details above).