He says, "Definitely, they are an endangered species. It's particularly important to save nesting turtles. A nesting adult reproductive turtle isn’t just one turtle…it is the ten-thousands that didn’t make it to that age. The estimates are that one out of ten thousand ever make it. Every one adult in a population that is endangered is worth saving, because their future rests on each individual. It's getting worse (for sea turtles) because of habitat losss. Every one of those animals is worth saving."
I ask David about the beaches of Guana Cay, explaining to him that all of the beaches are relatively empty, but that the Discovery Land Company would change that with its wall of development on the Northeastern end of Guana Cay.
He says, "nesting beaches are better off with no people. A quiet undeveloped healthy beach is ideal, but I live in Florida and development is everywhere and it is going to happen. Some of that nesting occurs on beaches where there has been development, but they tend to avoid those locations."
I explain to David that the Discovery Land Company's Bakers Bay Golf and Ocean Club utilizes the work of Kathleen Sullivan Sealey, who with the help of Earthwatch, is helping to ensure that the development is sound ecologically.
He says, "People make their living off signing off on developments. It's nothing new"
David grew up as a Florida surfer. "I spent a lot of my youth in the water," he says. "My hometown was Orlando at a time when that city was turning a small Florida community into a horrific tourist trap. I watched some really spectacular places deteriorating as a high schooler. I was just a high school surfer boy just got interested in conservation. I went to the University of Florida in Gainesville where I found out I was generally good at communications. I am not a scientist, I am a journalist."
David found his first job after college working for Florida Defenders of the Environment, which concentrated on protecting riverine systems, the "spectacular floodplain forests in the north-central parts of Florida.
At the time, the Caribbean Conservation Corps was looking for someone to do activism in Florida issues. "I did not choose sea turtles," David said, explaining that he was a general conservationist. "Sea turtles chose me."
