Save the Turtles
This chapter traces the rise of an international movement to protect sea turtles during the postwar period. It explains how the economic changes brought on by the Second World War led the Caymanian government to envision and develop an alternative economy for its subjects when the turtle industry showed signs of distress. It also charts the development of oceanography and marine science in the years during and after the Second World War. This shift spurred awareness of ocean ecosystems and shaped the nascent marine environmentalism of the first wave of turtle scientists, including Archie Carr. It concludes with Carr's sea turtle research in Costa Rica and, more broadly, the greater Caribbean. The chapter argues that macrolevel changes coupled with the depletion of sea turtles forced turtlemen to end their generations' pursuit of green and hawksbill turtles in the 1970s.