Annual Connell Visiting Lecture Features Dr. Terry Norton

VALDOSTA – Valdosta State University’s 31^st Annual Clyde Eugene Connell Visiting Lecture Program features Dr. Terry Norton, the director of the Georgia Sea Turtle Center (GSTC) in Jekyll Island. Norton will deliver a lecture titled “The Georgia Sea Turtle Center: Integrating, Rehabilitation, Research and Education” Tuesday, March 12 at 7:30 p.m. in the University Center Magnolia Room.

Norton’s lecture will highlight the GSTC’s mission to increase awareness of habitat and wildlife conservation challenges, promote responsibility for ecosystem health and empower people to take action to protect the environment. The GSTC was established in 2007 and treats hundreds of sea turtles that suffer from boat strikes, fishing line entanglements, hook ingestion, flotation abnormities and cold stunning.

Norton, who is the director and head veterinarian of the center, received his Bachelor of Science from New Mexico State University and his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Tufts University in Massachusetts. He became a diplomat in the American College of Zoological Medicine in 1992.

Aside from working at the GSTC, Norton provides medical, surgical and preventative health care for a wide range of captive mammals birds and reptiles on St. Catherines Island. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Florida, North Carolina State University and the university of Georgia Colleges of Veterinary Medicine. He is a published author of 35 articles and serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine.

Hosted by VSU’s Department of Biology, the Clyde Eugene Connell Visiting Lecture Program is held every year to honor the late Dr. Clyde Connell, who was a biology professor at Valdosta State. Connell is recognized for contributing greatly to the department and community, as well as serving as department head from 1962 until his retirement in 1981. The lecture program is the first endowed visiting lecturer program established at Valdosta State.

For more information, contact the biology department at (229) 333-5759.