Thu, 13 Feb 2025
— The Book is taking shape.
It’s taken me over four years and thirteen trips to assemble the majority of the photos needed for this book. I remain infinitely grateful to all the friends, acquaintances, and supporters far and wide who responded to my fundraising campaign to make these expeditions possible.
In order to sleep on the seafloor, a Green turtle simply slows down its heartbeat,
having no need to breathe for an hour or more
“Building” a book is not as simple as it sounds, especially when the subject is a (mostly) mysterious marine creature that’s been around, quite literally, for tens of millions of years, yet doesn’t readily disclose its many survival secrets acquired during that staggeringly long period of time. That’s why I decided to approach this project only in my 8th decade of life, when I felt that my accumulated field experience might have prepared me for this ultimate challenge, plunging me largely into the unknown.
Unlike ALBATROSS and PENGUINS, who featured in my last two volumes of of similar design, SEA TURTLES don’t exactly show off by dancing and flirting in front of your camera. Instead, almost all of their extraordinary life skills are carried out very, VERY far from our prying eyes and camera lenses, far beneath the wave-tops in the open ocean. The only two things that keep sea turtles in touch with our world is their need to breathe air and likewise to find a place on land to lay their eggs.
SEA TURTLES will become the latest
addition to this book trilogy
Caption sample
A female Green turtle hurries back to the sea after nesting at dawn in Galapagos.
Figuring out where and how to best photograph all seven sea turtle species around the globe was daunting. Generating enough visual evidence of their extraordinary lifestyles has tested me and my much abused gear to the limit, facing many new technical challenges including capturing images at night, at sea, exposed to wind, rain, sand and storm, not mention highly challenging diving conditions. Yet, these experiences have also afforded me such incredible insights into other worlds such that, for the moment at least, the personal rewards honestly defy words.
During an Olive ridley turtle arribada at Escobilla Beach Turtle Sanctuary in Mexico, around the clock
monitoring teams from the government program CONANP carry out hourly estimates of nesting females.
Equal to the wonder that I felt by actually meeting the different turtles in their own environment during this book project, also came the joy of getting to know many unrecognized heroes worldwide. Despite their efforts often going unnoticed, these people dedicate their lives to ensure the survival and well-being of sea turtles of all kinds.
From Mexico to the Maldives, Hawaii to Florida, Australia to Trinidad Island in the Caribbean, there are people who pursue this goal with passion. Largely uncelebrated, they patrol nesting beaches under blazing sun or in the darkest of night, to ensure that sea turtles may continue to flourish in a fast-changing world.
At the Marine Institute of the Maui Ocean Center, Hawaii, Tommy Cutt (right) and his team cleanse
the wound of a Green turtle who was rescued after suffering deep cuts from being
severely entangled in monofilament fishing line.
In Panama’s Bastimientos National Park, Arcelio Gonzalez spends months alone on a tiny island,
monitoring the nightly nesting of rare Hawksbill turtles and
keeping poachers at bay for the Sea Turtle Conservancy.
Around the world, these dedicated turtle guardians, through their dogged determination and using a combination of education, legislation, persuasion and law enforcement — whether government-backed or NGO-sponsored — are saving millions upon millions of turtle eggs and hatchlings, and have helped entire species veer away from a sure path towards extinction.
Children on the Caribbean island of Trinidad take great pride in rescuing baby
Leatherback turtles hatching during daylight, when they are sure to be devoured by vultures.
The hatchlings will be kept in a secure cool pen and released safely just after sunset.
At the Rancho Nuevo Sea Turtle Sanctuary on the Gulf coast of Mexico, conservation managers and scientists monitor the recovery of the highly endangered Kemp’s ridley turtle, checking on the health of nesting females and measuring the incubating temperature of nests placed in predator-proof enclosures.
Now that I am close to completing the photography for the book, and am in the process of writing up a series of short essays about my personal experiences along the way, the lion’s share of the remaining work will rest with my good friend Rod Mast, turtle specialist and editor extraordinaire. Rod is currently working with scientists and conservationists around the world to bring together everything known — and unknown — about Sea Turtles. With the support and infinite patience and comprehension of our editor, Robert Kirk at Princeton University Press, our aim is to be able to launch the book at the International Sea Turtle Symposium due to take place in Hawaii next March.
A juvenile Green turtle, swims peacefully amid swarms of schooling reef fish in the Galapagos Islands.
