meanwhile Maryland allows its Retile House to close

Attachments : ‘Turtle Town’ makes comeback at Science Center of Connecticut By:Ken Harrison , Staff Writer 08/26/2004 After undergoing extensive renovations and reconstruction for the past three months, the “Turtle Town” exhibit at the Science Center of Connecticut on Trout Brook Drive reopened to the public on Aug. 19. Children from the Science Center’s preschool and West Hartford residents joined members of the Science Center’s staff for the reopening of “Turtle Town” with a ribbon-cutting ceremony held at the entrance to the exhibit. After conducting the ceremony for the guests on hand for the grand reopening, Ed Forand Jr., the president and CEO of the Science Center of Connecticut, which is in its 78th year in West Hartford, explained that “Turtle Town” has been one of the museum’s most popular exhibits since it first opened in the year 2000. He said that because “Turtle Town” has generated so many visitors since it first became one of the Science Center’s permanent displays, the exhibit needed to be upgraded and expanded to accommodate all of the people who want to see the turtles, tortoises and terrapins that are featured there. Forand added that the expansion and renovation of the “Turtle Town” exhibit was made possible by a grant given to the Science Center from the Edgemere Foundation. Advertisement “The Turtle Town exhibit has always been one of the more popular permanent exhibits that we have here and we recently decided that it was getting too old and needed to be redone,” Forand said. “Now we have more animals than we have ever had with even larger enclosures for them to live in. We are just extremely pleased and proud to have had the opportunity to enhance and restore this wonderful exhibit.” Those who visit the newly renovated “Turtle Town” exhibit will have the opportunity to see a wide variety of turtles that have been brought to the Science Center from all over the world. In addition to several species of turtles that are native to Connecticut, including the Pained Box Turtle and the Eastern Snapping Turtle, “Turtle Town” also features 15 other species of turtles from locales such as Russia, South Africa and Malaysia. Some of the species on display at the exhibit are an Atlantic Coast Diamondback Terrapin, an African Side Neck Turtle and a Mississippi Map Turtle. Two of the exhibit’s most prized residents are “Matilda,” an endangered Radiated Tortoise from Madagascar, and an African Leopard Tortoise named “Big D.” The refurbished “Turtle Town” exhibit also offers its visitors some hands-on learning devices, including a hollow Sea Turtle shell, turtle skeletons and X-rays of several different species that can be touched and examined at close range. “The new exhibit offers people a more hands-on atmosphere than the old one did because it provides more interaction with the animals, which helps people become better educated about them,” Forand said. “People of all ages love turtles and we hope that more will come and visit us and these amazing creatures in the new Turtle Town exhibit.” For more information on the Science Center of Connecticut and the “Turtle Town” exhibit, visit their Web site at http://www.ScienceCenterCT.org. Marguerite WhildenThe Terrapin InstituteP. O. Box 501Grasonville, MD. 21638410 370 9171410 757 9268