Renowned coral reef ecologist Dr. Michael Risk speaks to the inhabitants of Great Guana Cay about the dangers of the Bakers Bay Golf Club development. Photo courtesy Pat Weatherford.
As Europeans entered the scene in the New World, there is no question the sea turtles played an important role in feeding them all. Pirates or Spaniards, English or French - hunting for turtle eggs or turtles themselves was a primary component of their ability to play out their wicked roles on these gentle seas.
By the twentieth century, man had depleted an animal that once dominated the sea in its billions. By a few decades ago, most sea turtle species were at the brink of extinction. All seven species are endangered.
Eerily, almost all those turtle myths suggest that when the turtles go, so does life itself. Today, sea turtles are universally threatened by man.
By the 1950's, a heroic man named Archie Carr spread the fever of sea turtle conservation around the world. Today, his disciples - people like Dr. Karen Bjorndal or David Godfrey, have given us grounds for restrained optimism. The sea turtles may live after all.
But on the small cay of Great Guana, in the Northern Bahamas, an American golf course developer is in the early phases of an audacious plan that will threaten five of these majestic species. In their own Environmental Assessment, the developer writes, "Marine environments adjacent to the island provide abundant habitat for (the Green Turtle, the Hawksbill Turtle, the Loggerhead Turtle, Kemp's Ridley Turtle and the Leatherback Turtle."
I have witnessed thousands of sea turtles in my life. But all of those I have witnessed in the waters of Great Guana Cay. Great Guana Cay is turtle station central. Few places in the world are so crucial for sea turtles - most crucially as foraging grounds.
I have walked the shores of Guana Cay, and seen that incredible evidence of loggerhead nests - the thin white sacs of loggerhead turtle shells broken on the beach and withering in the sun.
Always these empty sacs are a reminder of summertime, of imagining what might have happened the night before. Thousands of inch-long scaled baby sea turtles using the dim light of the horizon to propel themselves toward the sea.
One in ten thousand of these babies will become a breeding adult. For the rest, it's a rough mission to make it past the coral barrier reef, into the Atlantic. First, some ghastly looking crabs are waiting for them along the tideline, ready to snatch them up. Then it's large fish and big waves, and...the Northern Bahamas, particularly islets like Great Guana, are the most fertile stomping grounds for tropical sharks in the world. Guana Cay is a literal haven for sharks, who will feast on these winged mariners.
