Chelonia: Return of the Sea Turtle

Nina saves an endangered green sea turtle and after nursing her back to health, returns her to the ocean so she can mate and lay eggs.

Dawn Ericson Navarro is a naturalist artist specializing in marine animals and ocean ecology. A graduate of the Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles, she holds a B.A. in both Illustration and Design. After an extensive career in art and design, having worked for the Los Angeles Times and The Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Walt Disney Company, Disney News and the Playmates Toys Company, among other assignments and clients, Dawn began her most important work in scratchboard art ten years ago.As a naturalist and certified scuba diver, she pursued her interests in marine ecology with sketches in dive logs of the various animals she saw underwater. She then extended her work by creating a collection of final, accurately detailed scratchboard illlustrations of the marine environment and its animals. Working with respected and world-renowned marine biologists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography UCSDD, she combined each drawing with natural history text. This collection was to become the basis for a weekly newspaper column, "Ocean Encounters," which was syndicated by the Los Angeles Times Syndication for six years.
Dawn also produced and illustrated a series of natural history posters. She co-produced three Los Angeles Times Books, and has illustrated two children's books.

Wallace "J." Nichols, Ph.D., is a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences and founder/co-director of Ocean Revolution, SEE the WILD, and Blue Mind Life. His work has been broadcast on NPR, BBC, PBS, National Geographic and Animal Planet and featured in Time, Newsweek, GQ, Outside, Fast Company, Scientific American, and New Scientist. He lives in California with his partner Dana and two daughters.