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Marine Turtle Newsletter 59:14, © 1992
Jack Woody
National Sea Turtle Coordinator, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 500 Gold Ave. S.W.,
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87103 USA
Earl Possardt, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Sea Turtle Coordinator for the Southeast and U. S. Caribbean for the past eight years, has accepted a new FWS position in the Service's Northeast region. This leaves the FWS with a void that will be very difficult to fill with a person of Earl's dedication, integrity, and knowledge of sea turtles. All those who work hard for sea turtle resources in the southeast U. S. will be sorry to see Earl go, as are we.
Although many dedicated people are now involved, it was Earl's initial singlehanded efforts to establish the Archie Carr Sea Turtle National Wildlife Refuge on Florida's east coast which got the project off the ground. The refuge will ultimately result in the protection of the single most important nesting beach for loggerhead and green sea turtles in the United States.
Earl, in collaboration with the respective States, also established index nesting beaches, which will provide sound population trend data for the United States, a badly needed quantitative database for long-term analysis. These are but two highlights of the great many contributions Earl has made to sea turtle conservation.
I know I speak for all of us who have known and worked with Earl in sea turtle conservation when I say we will miss him and we all wish him the best in his new position. I know the resources under his new purview will certainly benefit.