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When we first took on the MTN in 1998 we had both only recently finished our doctorates and had no children! Now we have two! Our IT skills were limited, email was only just becoming the norm in the UK, we had to learn desktop publishing, editing skills and our first purchases were a home computer, printer and set of dictionaries! In the first few months, after hundreds of emails from our predecessors Karen and Scott Eckert, we were beginning to wonder what we had taken on. It was all rather daunting! It has been an amazing time for us, a steep learning curve, and we would never have achieved all that we have without the skills and efforts of Michael Coyne. Michael was the driving force behind getting the MTN online, and as SEATURTLE.ORG has grown he has also taken over maintaining
the mailing list, dealing with all the finances and the printing. Karen and Scott did not have a Michael! We are not sure how they did it all for 10 years! Thankfully Michael will remain as online editor – we hope forever!

There are many many people to thank over the course of our Editorship,
a cast of hundreds! Most notably, however, we must thank our Editorial Board Members who are often asked to review articles, or proof read the MTN, with very short notice! They have included:

Nicholas Mrosovsky (Founding Editor)
Karen Eckert (Editor Emeritus)
George Balaz
Lisa Campbell
Angela Formia
Jack Frazier
Matthew Godfrey
Colin Limpus
the late Peter Lutz
Roderic Mast
Jeff Miller
Nicolas Pilcher
Anders Rhodin
Kartik Shanker
Manjula Tiwari
Roldan Valverde
Jeanette Wyneken.

For their sterling efforts, we thank Angela Mast and her team (Rod Mast, Cristina Mittermeier, Ricardo Zambrano) who translated and also produced the Spanish version, Noticiero de Tortugas Marinas, until 2002. A labour of love! Karen Bjorndal, Alan Bolten and Peter Eliazar of the Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research have sent us amazingly punctual and thorough recent publications throughout our 8 years and we very much hope that they will continue this fantastic service, one of the most important aspects of the MTN. We are very grateful to Kelly Samek who has compiled the News and Legal Briefs section of the MTN since 2000 and always had it ready on time. A big thanks to Anders Rhodin and the Chelonian Research Foundation for seeing us through the first 4 years by handling the finances and mailing list of the MTN. Michael Coyne’s team for their html skills. All of those excellent referees who did speedy reviews of articles, and those who did slower ones!

And of course a huge thank you to all of the funding bodies and individual sponsors who support the MTN, without whom the MTN would become a purely online facility and perhaps not reach those who most need it.

So, back she goes across the Atlantic.........back to where she started, which leads us to thank Nicholas Mrosovsky, Founding Editor of the MTN way back in 1976. Nicholas still reads each issue of the MTN with a fine tooth comb, sending us regular comments on his likes and dislikes and provides much thought provoking material! Keep it coming!

In his first editorial he wrote:

The aim of this newsletter is:
1) to provide a forum for exchange of information about all aspects of marine turtle biology and conservation
2) to alert interested people to particular threats to marine turtles, as they arise.

We hope that this is still the case and urge you all to get out those books full of data, write those articles, and share your experiences with the rest of the sea turtle community. We know there are lots of opinionated people out there! Keep the new editors busy!

The new editors will be contactable on MTN@seaturtle.org