Top 5 Countries
Matthew asked what the top five countries were in terms of symposium registrants. I've also added the tallies from other countries in the region (I may have missed some in my cursory review and I was a bit free with the term "regional" with regard to some of the Pacific Islands).
130 United States (US) (14) 563 463
28 Australia (AU) (3) 12 11
17 Mexico (MX) 20 38
13 India (IN) 4 11
12 Costa Rica (CR) (1) 15 16
11 Malaysia (MY) 0 7
11 Indonesia (ID) 1 2
10 Vietnam (VN) 4 3
8 Japan (JP) 6 4
4 Palau (PW) 3 1
4 Bangladesh (BD) 0 12
3 Sri Lanka (LK) 0 4
1 Taiwan, Province of China (TW) 1 0
1 Samoa (WS) 0 0
1 New Zealand (NZ) 2 2
1 Korea, Republic of (KR) 1 1
1 Cambodia (KH) 0 0
1 American Samoa (AS) 0 0
The numbers in parentheses at the end indicate how many of registrants that have "unregistered". The additional numbers represent the 2002 and 2001 totals respectively.
The US has by far the most registrants, which is pretty normal, accept that there are usually about 400 or 500 folks from the US.
I'm kind of dissapointed by the poor regional showing. Australia is only sending 28 so far, and Malaysia and Indonesia 11 each. I was personally hoping for a better turn out, but perhaps these are reasonable numbers and what people that know more than I about SE Asia were expecting. One of the arguments for moving the symposium out of the US was to encourage more regional participation in other parts of the world. Unless there are a lot of last minutes registrants our progress towards that goal will be minimal.
The UK dropped out of the top 5 this year. They had 16 and 28 in 2002 and 2001, respectively.
On the upside, we have new representation (at least looking at the last two years) from Western Samoa, Cambodia and American Samoa.
I am left wondering though, is there no one in China working with sea turtles, or is it just difficult for them to travel?
Despite my dissapointment over the small numbers I am really looking forward to a small meeting. I have to admit to being overwhelmed the last few years by the sheer number of people in attendance. I have found it extremely difficult to have a meaningful conversation with any one person. I am looking forward to the opportunity to spend some "quality time" with turtlers from around the world!
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Comments
I remember the conferences on St. Simons Island and Jekyll Island. They were nice because they were small. However, I have heard the opinions of many researchers in the US. There is some talk of forming a US or symposium in response to the now wandering international symposium, which probably would be better attended had it not been slotted for Malaysia or if the political climate was different. Heck, the Med folks have their own symposium.
Posted by: Mike Frick | February 13, 2003 11:04 AM
Not a bad idea, but if something like that happens I hope it is for the right reasons and not just because the ISTS is moving around. A US or regional meeting might make more sense for the legions of volunteers and working folks involved in the multitude of small orgs in the US. However, with the quality of presentations declining as the quantity has increased I just don't see a need for another meeting full of papers and posters. But something more workshop oriented might be extremely helpful to many individuals and groups.
Wonder who would be a good candidate to host such a meeting? Hmmm...
Posted by: Michael | February 13, 2003 09:46 PM
A US workshop or Western North Atlantic workshop, I think, would be very beneficial. Like Michael mentioned above, it would give the many individuals working with turtles who are not necessarily scientists but local volunteers a chance to meet annually as well as a good chance for those from commercial ventures like dredging companies, fisheries, etc.to attend and hear of research or issues that will directly impact their operations.While it is important to maintain the international comraderie and integrity of the sea turtle community, I also think it imporatnt for US workers to meet annually, many of which will not be able to do so this year because of the location of the ISTS meeting (for financial reasons as well as political).
Posted by: Mike | February 14, 2003 02:02 PM