Turtle Rescues and Crittercams: From Ellington to Around the World

“Turtle Rescues & Crittercams: From Ellington to Around the World,” the story about the David E. Luginbuhl Institute for Endangered Species and the development of the Crittercam remote camera, will be featured two ways this month. Throughout October, an exhibit will be open at Hall Memorial Library, 93 Main Street. On Wednesday, October 19 at 5:30 pm, a presentation will be held in the Ellington High School Auditorium, 37 Maple Street. Both the exhibit and the presentation are free and open to the public.

The library exhibit includes captioned photos and clippings about the leatherback turtle and the Foundation’s role in protecting it from extinction. In an interesting twist, the exhibit also features an enlarged version of the famous photo of George Mendonsa, a U.S. Navy sailor, kissing a nurse on the streets of New York City on “V-J Day,” the day the World War II war with Japan ended. After the War, Mendonsa owned Tallman & Mack Trap Company in Newport, Rhode Island. When Mendonsa heard about the Luginbuhl Institute’s efforts to save the leatherback turtle, he enlisted his 72-foot commercial fishing boats to bring leatherback turtles to Newport so the Institute could study them. For 20 years, Mendonsa's financial donations to the Luginbuhl Institute funded much of the research, which was cutting-edge and greatly expanded scientific knowledge of leatherback turtles around the world.

The October 19 event will be emceed by Chris Luginbuhl, an Ellington native and founder of the Luginbuhl Institute, which was named after his father, David. For many decades, Luginbuhl has been a pioneer in saving the leatherback turtle from extinction. He will describe how his passion for leatherback turtles was ignited, and what it was like to be a catalyst for global progress in protecting leatherback turtles and the development of the Crittercam. The very first time the Crittercam was used was on a leatherback turtle in 1989, and Luginbuhl played a huge role in it.

Keynote speaker will be Greg Marshall, a National Geographic Society Fellow and Research Associate from metro Washington DC. He is an inventor, biologist, conservationist and Emmy Award-winning cinematographer. Marshall has dedicated his life to studying, exploring, and documenting animal life in the world’s oceans and across the globe. His most celebrated contribution to the scientific community is the invention of the Crittercam, a small, lightweight, streamlined camera that has the remarkable ability to travel unobtrusively with its animal hosts where no camera has gone before, capturing never-before seen footage of the private lives of wild animals.

In 1986, Marshall was diving off the coast of Belize in Central America and encountered a shark. The shark approached him and disappeared with three quick strokes of its tail. Stuck to the shark’s belly was a remora fish. As Marshall watched the shark disappear, it occurred to him that if he could put a camera in place of the remora, he could learn about the shark’s behavior. Inspired, he built the first Crittercam in 1987, and in 1989, he collaborated with Luginbuhl to deploy the camera on a leatherback turtle in its natural habitat.

Marshall has led over 120 field expeditions worldwide, collaborating on behavioral studies of some 80 species including turtles, penguins, whales, alligators, sharks, lions and house cats. In addition to publishing with his collaborators in every major journal and publication, Marshall’s Crittercam research has provided a dazzling library of imagery from the perspective of animals in the wild. This footage has been used in over 70 National Geographic films, including March of the Penguins, a 13-part “Crittercam” television series, and dozens of shorts in PBS’s “Wild Chronicles” series. Marshall’s films carry a strong conservation message. Marshall has presented dozens of talks with National Geographic’s Speakers Bureau, and was featured in CNBC’s “10 of the World’s Coolest Jobs.” He continues to explore new approaches to research and image making and his mission remains to share the experiences of wild animals in ways that make their lives immediate and relatable to humans.

Through his research, film, lectures and conservation efforts, Marshall brings the outdoors inside, creating windows into the natural world that allow animals to show us their lives, their struggles, their challenges and triumphs. “When we learn something new and fascinating about animals, the space between us diminishes. We care more, and an urgency for conservation is ignited. Whether through innovative imaging technology and research, filmmaking or education outreach, my passion is to help to preserve the natural diversity of our ever more intimate planet.”

For more information, please contact Chris Luginbuhl at 860.978.8355 or email him at reflectandglow@gmail.com.