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Marine Turtle Newsletter 151:32, © 2016
TRIBUTE: Jack Woody’s Long-Term Influence on Sea Turtle Conservation
Thane Wibbels
Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1300 University Blvd., Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 USA (E-mail: twibbels@uab.edu)
The sea turtle world experienced a great loss with the recent passing of Jack Woody, but his influence will continue for generations due to his accomplishments, leadership, and his inspiration of a whole new era of sea turtle conservationists. My memories of his personality and impact revolve around the near extinction and recovery of the Kemp’s ridley, but that was just one of his many impacts on conservation. The Kemp’s ridley story is a classic example of his great influence on sea turtle conservation. He was a champion at understanding what needed to be done to save an endangered species, and then achieving major goals by cutting though what often appeared to be unsurmountable politics and red tape. As the USFWS Chief of Endangered Species for the southwestern U.S., he heard about the plight of the Kemp’s ridley and as he put it “So I snuck down to Mexico to check out the situation first hand”. As the Kemp’s ridley was heading toward extinction, he was the one who realized that a binational effort on the primary nesting beach at Rancho Nuevo might be the only way to give the ridley a fighting chance for survival. He used his political savvy to significantly enhance logistical support for Rene Marquez’s group conducting conservation at Rancho Nuevo. When it became clear that the high mortality of juveniles and adults was preventing the recovery of the ridley, Jack Woody used the near extinction of the ridley to force the implementation of turtle excluder devices (TEDs) in U.S. waters. He spearheaded an effort by USFWS, NOAA Fisheries, and an NGO (Center for Marine Education) for TED implementation which turned into a major political battle. When the long and intense battle was finally won and it was time to announce the implementation regulations to the fisheries groups in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Government sent Jack Woody (along with a couple of body guards for his protection) to personally tell the local shrimping groups when and why they had to use TEDs. Jack Woody’s Herculean efforts regarding the implementation of TEDs and establishment of a binational effort at Rancho Nuevo cannot be overstated. Those efforts stabilized the Kemp’s ridley when it was near extinction and initiated its recovery. And while he used the Kemp’s ridley to push through the implementation of TEDs, he fully understood that TEDs would begin enhancing the recovery of all sea turtle species throughout U.S. coastal waters.
The Kemp’s ridley was just one of many facets in the Jack Woody conservation legacy. Many of his other conservation achievements have been mentioned in previous tributes, but I have one anecdote to emphasize the point. We were at Jack Woody’s house in Albuquerque talking to him about the history of Kemp’s ridley conservation and we eventually left through the garage. Behind the door to the garage was a wrinkled map of Mexico pinned to the wall with numerous multi-colored push pins ranging from northern to southern Mexico and from Baja California to the Yucatan. He said, “Hey, you might like this”, and then he said, “these are all conservation projects I supported or helped initiate in Mexico” (Figure 1). That was classic Jack Woody: the map was behind the door to the garage along with the broom and step stool. Jack Woody was never out for notoriety, he was out to save species from extinction and preserve the natural environment. His personality and attitude toward conservation was contagious. Due to his achievements and inspiration, his influence on sea turtle conservation will carry on for generations.
Jack Woody beside his map of Mexico. His impact on conservation extended well beyond Kemp’s ridley conservation and the implementation of turtle excluder devices. He mentioned that each of the push pins in the map represented projects that he had supported or helped initiate in Mexico
Jack Woody sketch based on a scene from the 1981 PBS documentary, “The Heartbreak Turtle.” During the scene, he was expounding on the absolute necessity of saving species from extinction. (Sketch by Sarah Adkins, University of Alabama at Birmingham).