By Freya Gerrard
A Leicester girl is currently volunteering in Greece to help protect the endangered sea turtles and their habitats.
Beth Poulteney, 19, is a student from Leicester studying level three animal science at Brooksby College.
To help with her studies she travelled to Kefalonia to help the endangered sea turtles and their habitats during their incubation and hatching stages.
Delighted: Beth Poulteney at the first nest her group found with turtle eggs
Beth said: “We do early morning surveys to look for tracks from the turtles before anyone has walked on them and we are looking to see if they have attempted to nest or if they have actually nested.
“We do turtle tagging where we microchip and put little tags on their flipper so we can identify individuals and monitor their health and wellbeing.
“We also do beach cleans like litter-picking and we do sand-sifting which is using mesh squares to see if there are micro-plastics in the sand.”
After her level three animal science course, Beth is hoping to attend Oxford Brookes University to study animal biology and conservation.
“I’m doing these kind of things to see what species and environments I want to work with,” she said.
“Travelling abroad to work with wildlife is beneficial for my personal development because I’m working and living with strangers so it’s helped with my confidence and interpersonal skills.”
Beth added: “I would recommend it to a variety of people, not just people who are wanting to do wildlife careers.
“It’s good to have people in all careers to understand conservation projects and experience it first hand.”
For more information on how to get involved and volunteer you can visit the Wildlife Sense website.
