Photo by
Sarah Kirkby Photo by Sarah Kirkby
Are there sea turtles nesting on Great Guana Cay? Of course, because my entire life I had witnessed their eggs. Locals see them all the time. Even Kathleen Sullivan Sealey admits she sighted them on her 'turtle walks.' She writes me to say, "...we have only mapped two nests all summer!"
Kathleen Sullivan Sealey is the marine ecologist hired to write the EIA and provide ongoing environmental assessments for this gigantic golf course and marina on this small islet. When I mention the known nesting sites adjacent to the future golf course. She says, "...and where do you do {get} information on 'known breeding sites'?
In fact, loggerheads nest throughout the windward beaches of Great Guana Cay, and also on Gumelemi Cay, a small adjacent mini-islet where the Discovery Land Company intends to build five mansions (according to the map on their website) directly over a beach that is a yearly nesting site for sea turtles.
Sullivan Sealey invokes Dr. Karen Bjorndal, the enigmatic sea turtle conservationist and scientist. She writes, "We have worked with {Dr.} Karen Bjorndahl, and there is very little documented information on turtle nesting sites in the Abacos, only reports from fishers."
"What right do you have to comment on the policies of this country?"
Kathleen Sullivan-Sealey, responding to Notes from the Road |
I called Dr. Bjorndal, who seemed taken aback that Sullivan Sealey was saying that 'we have worked with' her. "It is absolutely incredible that they are able to build that golf course on that little island," Dr. Bjorndal says over the phone.
Sullivan Sealey refused to talk to me by phone, which would appear strange, considering I was writing about her. But things with her started getting even weirder. Classic behavior of somebody who is wrong and knows they are wrong in a discussion or debate is to start making wild claims, or accusing the questioner in an irrational way.
I had taken Discovery Land Company's lot map and superimposed the turtle nesting grounds on the appropriate beaches as a tool to help communicate with Sullivan Sealey. I was assisted in creating this map by Dr. Michael Risk and with the help of other eminent coral reef ecologists.
