SOS History
History of Turtle Conservation in Tobago (1980s-2000)
During the early eighties, the Field Naturalists Club and the Forestry
Department conducted limited patrols and tagging efforts throughout the island.
The Forestry Department most notably installed turtle sighting data books at
major beachfront hotels and with the Customs officials at the airport. Dedicated
warden and Forestry officer Selwyn Davis spearheaded small scale community
outreach and patrolling activities with the support of his Department. The Field
Naturalists Club engaged in turtle monitoring activities and experimented with
captive hatching led by the indomitable outdoorsman David Rooks. Both parties
engaged in some flipper tagging in keeping with the standards at that time.
In the mid-eighties, private individuals in the Black Rock/Plymouth area became
more actively involved in turtle protection at Great Courland Bay, often at
great personal risk. These efforts gradually expanded to include outreach
activities at the Rex Turtle Beach Hotel in hopes of encouraging turtle watching
as a viable alternative / deterrent to turtle hunting.
Wendy Herron, a pioneer
in this effort, went on to represent Tobago on the regional level as the Tobago
coordinator of WIDECAST, the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Network. By the
nineties, the Field Naturalist Club had evolved into Environement TOBAGO, the
Tobago’s first local environmental NGO with a Board of Directors comprising many
of Tobago’s resident and visiting environmentalists. In February 2000, in her
capacity as a WIDECAST country coordinator and an Environment TOBAGO Director,
Ms. Herron chaired a gathering at Mt. Irvine Beach Facilities of young surfers,
artists and students who were outraged by the continued killing of nesting sea
turtles and eager to become involved, thus SOS was born.
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