Today’s sea turtle conservationists stand on the shoulders of the giants who came before us, a phenomenon that goes back centuries to the first women and men who ever observed, described, and marveled at these incredible marine reptiles that thousands of us now work so passionately to conserve. Each successive generation has advanced our cause, and along that continuum of humans past and present are influential people of all ages, from all over the world, working in many arenas on countless topics and tasks. Yet, within that spectrum of sea turtle-centric humanity, there are some whose work spans decades, and whose influence and impact has been outsized by any number of metrics. On this page, SWOT begins to spotlight some of these living legends.
B. C. Choudhury started his sea turtle career in 1975 with the Odisha (India) Forest and Wildlife Department, then with the states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, and ultimately with the Wildlife Institute of India (WII). He was associated with the turtle walk and egg collection program in Madras that became the Students Sea Turtle Network, which is still active, and he has overseen dozens of master’s and PhD dissertations on Indian sea turtles.
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