In September 2008, the 3rd annual Behler Turtle Conservation Award was presented to Peter Pritchard in Tucson, Arizona at the 6th Annual Symposium on Conservation and Biology of Freshwater Turtles and Tortoises. This is Peter’s acceptance speech.
To be selected for the Behler Prize this year gives me enormous pleasure. Recognition by one’s peers is something that is always appreciated by anyone involved in the sciences or the arts, and in this case, the association it gives me personally with the memory of John Behler is particularly satisfying. John and I were exact contemporaries – 1943 babies, both of us – and both of us loved tortoises and turtles. He was always welcoming, always supportive, always full of turtle information and news, and he was one of the most loyal colleagues anyone could have. It is wonderful that this annual prize has been created, and wonderful too that it has already been awarded to such iconic players in the field of turtle conservation as Ed Moll and Whit Gibbons. I am greatly honored. My shoes are size 14, but theirs will be big shoes to fill.
This award also gives me great pleasure because I have always been a somewhat undefinable or unconventional turtle man. Working for the Audubon Society and subsequently forming my own research institute and museum are odd ways of conducting oneself, compared to seeking a normal job in a zoo, museum or university. How is my work to be judged?
A more manageable question is: how has this Institute venture worked out? I believe it is a success and has good chances of permanent existence. We are registered as a 401 C3 organization. We have recently significantly enlarged our board of directors and will soon put them to the test with fund raising challenges. We are hoping to construct a new building soon, although it may require that we raise over a million dollars to do so, something we have never done before, and perhaps should postpone until the recession is over. We have an alternative project where we may purchase an existing house for a much smaller sum. We are attracting more and more overseas scientists and students. Within the last month we have hosted turtle folks from France, Madagascar, Burma, Cambodia, and Malaysia, and we have deliberately created a user-friendly approach where scientists and students can stay here at almost no cost, and undertake their studies from dawn to midnight, according to their own circadian rhythms. People are starting to recognize that we represent a good permanent home for displaced turtle specimen collections, and our spirit and skeleton collections now number about 13,500 catalogued specimens thanks to steady ongoing growth and episodic receipt of substantial batches of specimens. I believe we are now the third largest turtle collection on the globe, and may even be the largest in terms of taxa represented. It’s easier if you can just do turtles and don’t have to collect elephants and butterflies as well.
Three colleagues have made very interesting comments about our work to create the CRI. Roger Wood suggested that we were the world’s first turtle Think Tank, a wonderful concept, I think. Nicholas Mrosovsky suggested that my specialty was representing the “first wave” of discovery of new turtle beaches, with the long-term slog work, seasonal monitoring or technological experimentation done by others at a later time, and I think he was right. Grahame Webb in Australia ventured the thought that a collection like ours could never be assembled again because the world is now too fraught with regulations and barriers to open transport of museum specimens, and he too may well be right.
• Turtle people enjoy their work. I remember once when the Desert Tortoise Council meeting was held on the upper level of a Los Vegas casino, and each day the tortoise people had to walk through the arcades of slot machines to get to the upstairs. Somehow, the gamblers, plugging away at the one-arm bandits, looked miserable; the tortoise people, at work rather than at play, looked like happy kids. Turtle folks are not usually rich but they get to travel more than many of much larger income would be able to afford. Moreover, they visit the tucked-away corners of countries where the tourists are few or absent, and somehow the common interest in turtles can created a surprising bond with local people who may venerate, eat, or just encounter turtles from time to time. This leads to priceless anecdotes about some of the more unlikely encounters, and I would like to share a few of these with you this evening.
India is the locale of several of these adventures. Sibille and I attended the CITES meetings in New Delhi some years ago, and had the privilege of meeting and having conversations with both Mrs Gandhi and also the late Maharajah of Baroda, Fatesinghrow Gaekwad, one of the last of the monarchs of old India. Mrs. Gandhi and I talked quite extensively about the marine turtle situation in Orissa, and we subsequently had some direct correspondence on this topic. A couple of years later I returned to India through Calcutta to do some turtle filming. Our filming equipment generated a complete impasse at the border inspection; we would have to pay full import duty or it could not be brought in. We looked for every possible line of persuasion, in vain. Then I remembered the Indira letter in my baggage. Retrieving it, I passed it to the immigration officer. He looked at it in total astonishment – it was hand-signed, in Prime Minister’s Office embossed letterhead, then walked to the back and showed it to several other senior officials. When he returned, there was no further problem with equipment importation.
At the CITES meeting, the Maharaja had planned a series of outdoor tented receptions for the assembled delegates and environmental lobbyists. They were so lavish and colorful that the whole scene seemed like a flashback to the glory days of the British Raj; perhaps Lord Curzon’s Durbah itself. Somehow I was included in the Maharaja’s list of Christmas letters to his friends and colleagues. One of these described his New Year events in New York city. He had attended a concert conducted by Zubin Mehta, and at the end he was ceremoniously presented with Mehta’s baton. He put this in the pocket of his coat, and then realized that it was still early in the evening, and he was also feeling like female company. He left the building, caught a taxi and quickly found the required female company. She sat on the seat beside him, then two traffic lights later jumped out with his greatcoat, wallet and precious baton, and disappeared into the crowd. Without ID or cash on his person, the royal guest had the greatest difficulty even being readmitted to his hotel. But he told this sad story to his entire roster of friends.
One other little incident in India struck me as serendipity to the highest degree. I had taken a trip from Delhi to the Chambal River, travelling as far as the Taj Mahal by scheduled tour bus, then taking a taxi to Bateshwah and Bah on the Chambal. At a certain point on the return I counted my money and found that I had just enough for the taxi fare with nothing left for dinner; and it was a long way, and I was hungry. I discussed the problem with the driver and he told me to wait for the next village. When we got there he opened the windows, and multitudinous brown arms and hands were thrust into the taxi, all bringing us food. By good luck, it was a day in the Hindu calendar on which the faithful were obliged to share food with strangers, and we had just assisted dozens of people with their sacred duty.
One more India story. We had circled from India through Bangladesh and back to Calcutta. There was one more species of turtle we needed to see, namely Chitra indica; there had been several near-misses, but we had not yet seen a live specimen. In India, even the most agnostic herpetologist soon becomes increasingly religious, and we decided to get a blessing on our Chitra mission. By good luck, we found a representative of Mother Teresa’s mission, and we asked him if we could meet the good lady. We fixed an appointment for the next day. This would be good Kharma indeed!
I set out through the back streets of Calcutta to find the mission. I got hopelessly lost. The streets were full of Hindu celebrants – for this was the Phagwar or Holi Festival, when everyone throws colored dye at each other. Finally I blundered into a temple, but it was not Mother Teresa’s Mission; it was the shrine of Kali the destroyer, the most bloodthirsty god in the Hindu Pantheon. Fleeing in some terror, I was set upon by dye-throwing Hindu women, and by the time I got back to the hotel I was a rainbow of color.
And one last story. In Thailand, I had a tight schedule. I made a quick overnight trip to Chang Mai in the north, where we hoped to find big-headed turtles, then got the early, express bus back to Bangkok (all flights were full, indeed overbooked; buses were the only option.) I had to keep an appointment with Wirot Nutaphand at the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Dusit Zoo. I got to town just in time, then realized I was filthy from field work and had no change of clothes with me. I quickly purchased a 75 cent shirt from a street vendor and squeezed into it, but I probably looked worse rather than better. We arrived at the site of the parade. I was escorted to a raised dais in which about 10 Thai army generals were decked out in all their medals and finery. Someone had mistakenly identified me as a VIP, and I was invited to join them. Never in my life have I felt so out of place. A foot taller than anyone else in the group, bereft of uniform and decorations, hatless and probably somewhat odiferous, but my fellow VIPs were polite enough not to notice any of this. But it sure was the best view of the parade!
