No offense there NCSailor, I certainly don't want to question the validity of Danny's eye test on the local turtle population, but it seems that the surrounding Caribbean countries, with a university system in place, have conducted their own studies and they respectfully disagree (as evident by the sea turtle harvesting ban put in place by local governments).

With that being said, and I'm sure Danny must know this, on Anegada the Horseshoe Reef Protection Act was established waaaay back in the early 1990's, in cooperation with the BVI government, to help the local sea turtle population rebound. It's great to hear that it's had an impact.

Respectfully, the Belonger/Non Belonger argument, the attempt to make this about infringement on the rights of local culture, simply doesn't hold water when the nations around you have found their turtle populations to be Critically Endangered and have enacted harvesting bans to try and reverse the trends....done so based on DECADES of scientific study.

It's all about educating and working together so you can protect your local resources, so your childrens children can taste Hawksbill stew, so that my children can visit and taste Hawksbill Stew. But in a cooperative study, involving Australia to Egypt, all the way to Barbados these folks with PHD's have found that, at the rate of current consumption and habitat destruction, we can expect the Hawksbill and the Green Turtle to be extinct in 30-40 years.

There's going to be opposition, just like there was in places like The Caymans, Cuba, the USVI, Barbados etc. That's to be expected. Change always has opposition.

I'm not an activist. I grew up in Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest. I hunt and I fish. My father used to tell me that there was no proof to the stories of dwindling salmon populations...and I believed him, until they were gone from the local streams and rivers.

My first visit to the BVI's was in 1993 and I remember seeing hundreds of sea turtles on our short boat ride from Beef Island to Marina Cay. This past September I took my children on a two week vacation, their first BVI trip, they got to see one in the same waters. One. Maybe it was just bad timing? Maybe the migration routes have changed? Maybe Sail445 and Danny, along with a few others on this post are correct and the world wide sea turtle population is just fine. Which means all those folks who spent 12 years in school to get doctorates, then chose to use those expensive credentials to make very little money by participating in the study of sea turtles across the world, are simply trying to push an agenda that is false and self serving.

I'm not sure who to believe now? The guy who says there is no proof the species is endangered, or the hundreds of studies and subsequent numbers and corresponding information provided as rebuttal to that sentiment?

It was a tough decision but I'm going with option two...science wins. Science says these creatures are "Critically Endangered", not because they are cute (as one post eluded to) but because the numbers are critically low and the creature is in jeopardy of being extinct within my children's lifetime.