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Tom was an incredibly versatile individual who has left his mark in many fields. His contributions to sea turtle conservation were enormous. Before the Japanese occupation the turtle egg industry of the Sarawak Islands (Talang 2 Besar, Talang 2 Kechil and Satang), off the southwest coast of Borneo, had been in the hands of a few prominent Malay families. In 1941 the industry was placed under a Turtle Trust Ordinance to be administered by the Curator of the Sarawak Museum. In 1947, Tom Harrisson became Curator of the Museum. He took charge of the Turtle Islands, instigated regulation of the exploitation there, and established a tagging program. His adoption of a monel metal cow-ear tag as a fin-clip, replacing the unsatisfactory shell-tags previously used, was a milestone in sea turtle research procedure. On July 4, 1956, a turtle that had been tagged at one of the rookery islands three years before returned to nest. This was the first remigration of a tagged turtle; and since then, hundreds of similar returns recorded at the Sarawak rookery and elsewhere have shown that the three-year absence represented the predominant intormigratory interval of the species. Tom's frequent short published accounts of his conservation problems and achievements at the islands attracted worldwide attention, which surely lengthened the survival-expectancy of Chelonia. When he died, the Turtle Group lost an irreplaceable officer, the green turtle a staunch benefactor, and the surviving Co-Chairman-a valued friend.

Archie Carr