Meet SEE Turtles' New Conservation Travel Director: Q&A with Gail Lemiec
SEE Turtles' new Conservation Travel Director, Gail is already hitting the ground running. This summer, she's traveling across Costa Rica to meet community partners, explore future student trip destinations, and experience one of our signature conservation travel programs firsthand. We caught up with her before her first field season to learn more about what brought her to SEE Turtles, inspired her as a child, and what she's most excited about.
Gail will be leading both of our travel programs, our Sea Turtle Conservation Tours as well as our newly acquired EcoTeach Student Travel Program.
Q: You're about to begin your first field season with SEE Turtles. Where are you headed, and what will you be doing?
A: I’m looking forward to beginning my field season in Costa Rica since I’ve been there before and I will have the chance to see some familiar places as well as explore new ones. In my previous role at the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher, I led conservation travel trips for educators and Aquarium members and we had the good fortune to work with EcoTeach as our partner in Costa Rica.
For this trip, I’ll be meeting some of our community partners on the Osa Peninsula and on the Caribbean side including Latin American Sea Turtles, Tortugas de Osa, and Turtle Love. Additionally, I will be traveling to the Arenal area and Sarapiquí to explore options for our student trips. Then I will join the SEE Turtle’s Costa Rica Green Turtles trip to experience a full course from start to finish. Overall, this trip will help me strengthen my knowledge of what we offer to both students and adults.
Q: What are you most excited about in your new role?
A: I’m excited about the opportunity to help grow something that will connect more people to conservation and ultimately help save species. I’m in awe of what this organization has done with just a few determined staff members and I can’t wait to see where we go in the years to come!
Q: What drew you to SEE Turtles?
A: Besides the amazing amount of experience and knowledge on this team, I wanted to be part of an organization that values all roles in conservation, one that realizes that without connecting people and supporting local communities, there is no saving species. SEE Turtles was built on this belief and I am thrilled to be joining the team.
Q: Do you have a favorite sea turtle—or favorite animal?
A: I like to think of myself as an equal opportunity animal lover! Every time I see a sea turtle, it’s an amazing experience. I live in coastal North Carolina and I have the opportunity to see loggerheads quite a bit. I’ve always wanted to see a leatherback turtle and I saw my first ones (hatchlings in Puerto Rico) last year. I also love sharks and talking about their importance in our ocean ecosystems. I have a tattoo of a whale shark, so maybe there is a sea turtle one in my future!
Q: Was there a wildlife experience that inspired your career?
A: I grew up in Cleveland, OH and spent a lot of time exploring nature in my backyard and in the industrial lots around the neighborhood. The Cuyahoga River and the Ohio and Erie Canal were down the street from my house and I enjoyed observing the animals who made their home in and around those freshwater environments. I was also a frequent visitor to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, where the seals and sea lions would captivate my time and attention as I paid for a cup of fish to throw into the enclosure and watch them eat. But every summer we would visit SeaWorld in Aurora, OH. It was my favorite place, amazing me with animals I couldn’t see anywhere else, at least not in Ohio!
I didn’t set out to become a marine biologist or anything close, but I guess I ended up in that realm anyway.
The first memory I have specifically with sea turtles was a family vacation down to Florida—one of the few where we ventured away from Disney parks. We went to Captiva Island and learned about the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation and the work they do protecting sea turtles.
Q: What do you hope travelers take away from a SEE Turtles trip?
A: I hope they take away a sense of wonder at the natural world and their place in it and I hope that sense of wonder can be directed into a desire to care for these animals or species and habitats that are local to them. I also hope they are inspired by our community partners since many of them started with just a few passionate people who wanted to bring about change in their communities. These moments of inspiration or wonder can really be sparks to ignite more conservation-minded behaviors when they go back home.