Meet the ETA Team

European Turtle Alliance (ETA) BOARD

Eleanor Tirtasana Chubb, UK – Chair

Eleanor has been involved in chelonian conservation and welfare for over 20 years. She was invited onto the Europe committee by co-founder Henk Zwartepoorte in 2012. She has chaired Europe work since 2016 with the clear aim to build a turtle conservation movement in Europe. Eleanor is the founder of Tortoise Welfare UK and runs a variety of chelonian education programmes across the British community.

Kim Simmons, UK – Vice Chair

Kim has been the owner and director of independent Linton Zoo since 1972. Linton Zoo is home to a wide variety of chelonian species. Kim has dedicated her life to education and conservation. She is an experienced field program fundraiser and, through Linton Zoo, participates in collaborative studbooks for conservation breeding program. She is a member of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA).

Boris Berlijn, The Netherlands

Boris is a teacher at a vocational school for students that study to work with small mammals, reptiles and amphibians. At home Boris has a small tortoise sanctuary and currently (including private animals) has 30+ tortoises in a reptile room at his facility and in outdoor enclosures in the front- and backyard. And besides tortoises Boris keeps Leopard geckos, Bearded Dragons, a Mexican Pine snake and some tarantulas and millipedes. With the European Turtle Alliance Boris hopes to gain more awareness about tortoises and their wild habitat in order to prevent more habitat loss and decrease and even extinction from turtles in the wild. Boris is also Chair of the European Studbook Foundation, an independent organization of several dozens of studbook / breeding programmes of reptiles and amphibians. Boris is also a Master Herpetologist and an instructor/virtual education coordinator for the Amphibian Foundation in Alaska, GA. He has been working with reptiles and invertebrates as a hobby for many decades.

Matthew Rendle, UK

Matt has kept reptiles since childhood. Since qualifying as a Registered Veterinary Nurse (RVN), he has maintained a keen interest in exotics, including tortoises. From 2003 until 2017, he was able to pursue his interest in zoo and wildlife nursing at the Zoological Society of London’s London Zoo, where he encountered many fascinating cases. He now leads a team of 25 nurses in a busy practice in Leeds. He is chairman of the Association of Zoo and Exotic Veterinary Nurses (AZEVN) – which he co-founded in 2016 – and vice-chairman of the Veterinary Nurse Council of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS). He regularly lectures to veterinary nurses and veterinary surgeon undergraduates at the Royal Veterinary College on topics such as herpetological husbandry, zoo and wildlife diagnostic imaging and anesthesia. He also lectures extensively on herpetology throughout Europe and America.

Tom Wells, UK

Tom has worked as a reptile keeper and a senior keeper in zoos in the UK, and has over a decade of experience of keeping reptiles privately. He has fieldwork experience in the study of reptiles and amphibians in numerous countries. Tom finished an MSc at the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology in 2019. He completed his thesis in Bolivia, where he investigated the commercialisation and usage of chelonians. Tom manages ETA’s social media.

Jane Williams, UK

Jane Williams completed her first degree in Zoology from the University of Nottingham, and has a Post Graduate Certificate in Education from the same institution. She has an MA in Education from the Open University. She completed the Post Graduate Diploma in Companion Animal Behaviour Counselling at the University of Southampton, and a research MSc (CABC) at the same institution. Her research topic was the husbandry and care of captive Mediterranean tortoises in the UK.

Jane is Animal Behaviour and Training Council (ABTC) Registered as a Clinical Animal Behaviourist, and an Animal Training Instructor. Jane was the ABTC Chair (2018–2020) and is currently a Trustee and its Secretary (2020–2025). She has been a full member of the Association of Pet Behaviour Counsellors since 2009, and was its Chair (2017–2020).

Jane has run a Chelonian welfare organisation (www.tortoisesoutheeast.co.uk ) for over 30 years, as well as teaching and writing academic courses and practical workshops, to help improve the welfare of captive Chelonians.

Jane has delivered Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for staff in veterinary practices and rescue centres and delivered seminars for owners, veterinary students (Royal Veterinary College), schools, colleges and rescue staff on tortoise welfare and behaviour. She has presented at the British Veterinary Nursing Association (BVNA) and the London Vet Show. She regularly presents at the European Turtle Alliance Conference and is a guest lecturer at ARU Writtle (in the UK).

Jane has a number of published articles in the field of reptile husbandry and welfare with a focus on tortoises. Her articles on Chelonian husbandry and welfare include ways to reduce stress for reptiles during veterinary visits and treatment. In 2025, her book “Tortoise Husbandry and Welfare” covering all aspects of care and welfare, was published by CABI https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/book/10.1079/9781800623736.0000

Richard Barfield, UK

Richard has been keeping Chelonia for over 23 years. During that time, as part of the Three Counties Tortoise Club, he was involved in tortoise health checks in the West Midlands and Gloucestershire twice a year, with the one-day events quite often seeing over 200 tortoises. In addition to the health checks the group also raised money to help support various chelonian related causes and developed strong links with the International Centre for the Conservation of Turtles at Allwetter Zoo, in Munster, Germany. Richard keeps and breeds several species in his collection at home and has bred a number of species for the first time in the UK.

Kimberly Carter

Kim received a Mzool in Zoology and Herpetology at Bangor University and has worked as a reptile and amphibian keeper at ZSL London Zoo since 2019, working with a range of threatened and endangered chelonians. Her primary interests are research and advancing the husbandry of the reptile collection, and in particular has championed the research and breeding of Chinese big-headed turtles (Platysternon megacephalum), achieving a BIAZA and EAZA first breeding of this species in 2021. She has carried out fieldwork with conservationists and researchers in Hong Kong to further the collective knowledge of this species in captivity.

General ETA Team

Charlotte Ducotterd, Switzerland – Advisor

Katie Mackender, UK – Membership Secretary and Bookkeeper  

Rein Wiarda, Netherlands – Book-keeper and internal accounting.

Job Stumpel, Netherlands – Veterinarian and Curator at Dierenpark Emmen, Netherlands

Contributors

Matt Goetz, Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Jersey

Luke Harding, UK

Gerardo Garcia, Chester Zoo, UK

Tim Skelton, UK

Ben Tapley, Zoological Society of London, UK

Peter Praschag, Turtle Island Zoo, Austria

MEETING MINUTES ARE AVAILABLE TO MEMBERS UPON REQUEST.