In 2017, Callie Veelenturf won the first conservation scholarship given out by Turtle Island Restoration Network, which meant she’d be traveling with Todd Steiner, the head of the West Marin-based nonprofit, to study sharks and turtles at Cocos Island, 350 miles off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.
At first Ms. Veelenturf, who has devoted much of her career to sea turtles and later founded the nonprofit Leatherback Project, was thrilled to be working closely…