INFORMATION FOR 2010 MEMBERSHIP

CHELONIA 2002 Freshwater Turtle Breeding Center is an international organization located in Austria. It was founded in 1998 by Harald Artner, its past and present director.
Its goal is to investigate the breeding of freshwater turtle species of all continents in captivity and to spread the knowledge hereby achieved among its members. Of course, these highly valuable informations will also be used to support turtle conservation projects worldwide.

Our main goal is to breed freshwater turtle species of the world. So far the center, its members, partners, affiliates, and friends have managed to breed as many as 110 turtle species, even worldwide first-time breeding successes being among them!

CHELONIA 2002 offers a number of special benefits exclusively to its members:

1. We assist in forming as many breeding groups of freshwater turtle species within our community as possible. Our members already established a high number of highly productive freshwater turtle breeding groups and we provide effective assistance in obtaining additional specimens completing these groups. A special coordinator will be appointed to assist our members with this task.

2. We quarterly publish the turtle journal EMYS in English. It is printed in high quality and in colour and due to its ISSN-Number it is internationally citeable. The spectrum of „EMYS“ mainly includes breeding reports of freshwater turtle species and on rare occasions tortoise species, field reports on natural habitats of turtle species, and much more.

3. Once a year we organize a two-day annual meeting. High-quality oral presentations are given there by internationally renowned speakers. Previous meetings were held in Paris, Venice, Budapest and the 2010 meeting will be held from March 5 to 7 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Our members have free access!

4. Several times a year special workshops on selected freshwater turtle groups are held in various European cities. Members have free entrance!

5. At least once a year a special behind-the scenes-tour is offered in the breeding center. The director will guide the tour through the facilities. For members only!

An intense contact and uncomplicated share of information and experiences is guaranteed among our members.

Please be advised that membership in CHELONIA 2002 is by invitation of candidates only. You may apply for candidate status at your “regional representative”.

REGIONAL REPRESENTATIVES

As membership in CHELONIA 2002 is by invitation only, anyone interested in becoming a member should first apply for candidate status to his respective regional CHELONIA 2002 representative listed below. A personal bio must accompany the completely filled-in application form. The regional representative will then probably invite the applicant for a personal interview.

Candidate status will normally be given to persons, who successfully bred a number of freshwater turtle taxa, published articles about it, and have proven to possess a reliable and loyal character.

Candidate status usually will be denied to persons having no experiences with freshwater turtle breeding, whose only interest is making money with turtles or who are involved with certain turtle keepers, who have shown hostility towards CHELONIA 2002 (or its predecessor organizations SFOE and EFTBA) or who do regular business with renowned Czech turtle smugglers.

Gerhard Widmann - Austria
gerhard.widmann@wien.gv.at

Ferry Grünewald - Benelux, United Kingdom
pelusios1973@gmail.com

Roger Bour - France
bour.roger@gmail.com

Jan Michels - Germany (North), Scandinavia
jmichels@zoologie.uni-kiel.de

Oliver Römpp - Germany (South), Switzerland
reptimax@t-online.de

Balázs Farkas - Hungary, Slovakia
farkasbalazs@yahoo.com

Andrea Luison - Italy
andrea.luison@breedingturtles.com

Marijan Tunjic - Southeastern Europe
pelodiscus@gmail.com

Eduardo Villalba - Spain, Portugal
turttle_edu@hotmail.com

Paul Vanderschouw - United States, Canada
chelidman@tampabay.rr.com