Media advisory: Captain Kidd Shipwreck, 'Living Museum of the Sea' dedication
Editors: Interview questions for Charles Beeker can be e-mailed to him directly at cbeeker@indiana.edu. Please state your publication's name clearly in your e-mail. Media availability and visit to the dive site in the Dominican Republic will be May 23 at 10 a.m.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 20, 2011
WHAT: The dedication of the Captain Kidd Shipwreck site as an official underwater museum will take place off the shore of Catalina Island in the Dominican Republic on May 23, the 310th anniversary of Kidd's hanging in London for his 'crimes of piracy.'
WHO: Charles Beeker, director of Underwater Sciences, an office within the Indiana University School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation; representatives of the United States Agency for International Development, the Dominican Republic, Indiana University and the Children's Museum of Indianapolis will be in attendance.
WHERE: Catalina Island in the Dominican Republic
The dedication will note both underwater and above-ground interpretive plaques. The underwater plaques will help guide divers around the Kidd site as well as relics and rare corals at two other shipwreck sites.
USAID awarded IU $200,000 to turn the Captain Kidd shipwreck site and two nearby existing underwater preserves into no-take, no-anchor "Living Museums of the Sea," where cultural discoveries will protect precious corals and other threatened biodiversity in the surrounding reef systems, under the supervision and support of the Dominican Republic's Oficina Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural Subacuático (ONPCS). USAID has since extended its support by a year, increasing the funding award to $300,000.
The Underwater Science team from the IU School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation (HPER), led by Beeker, has been working to preserve, analyze and document the Kidd shipwreck since its surprising discovery almost three years ago. For more information, read http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/18401.html.
