Dr. Karen Bjorndal says, "This is an old problem that chips away at sea turtle habitat, and other natural areas. One loss of a relatively small area of habitat may not be a serious loss, and they are approved one at a time. But the cumulative loss of habitat each year, when all of these small losses are combined, is tremendous."
The golf course, which will raise the population of the island by a level of five, cannot in any way make that claim.
I showed Dr. Karen Bjorndal the map that made Sullivan Sealey angry. I said, The small cay shown in the upper left hand side of the map has a small beach that actually hosts nesting turtles every year. Five to six homes are proposed for that cay, and cover the entire islet. Does the loss of this sea turtle habitat have any significance, considering there are larger populations of nesting
Of the gigantic marina the development proposes, Dr. Bjorndal says, "Pollution from oil and gasoline and lights will be a problem. Boat strikes are a huge problem for sea turtles." The traffic around Guana Cay is currently somewhat sparse. A 250 slip marina would likely quadruple the amount of boat traffic around the island, but because the marina is adjacent to the passage to the coral reef, it would likely increase traffic to the most important ecological marine section by a matter of five hundred percent.
Dr. Bjorndal is also concerned about the problems that come with hundreds of mansions and a golf course along the beach. Even though I mentioned that I believed Sullivan Sealey had proposed strict turtle conservation measures such as homes set behind the sand dunes and special lighting in the ocean to convince sea turtles to 'follow the light' to sea, she still said:
"Dogs and cats on a nesting beach become egg and hatchling predators. Lighting, even set back lighting, can disorient hatchlings...Also, remember that when a hurricane comes through and erodes the beach, people will want to erect sea walls to protect their expensive property. Under natural conditions, the beaches would shift around, migrate backwards and forwards, in response to storms."
