It's funny how things come around. This isn't my first time on Jekyll Island, not by a long shot. I'm here for an annual environmental conference, and in addition to previous year's conferences, since about 1982, I've also been here for geologic field trips, coastal research projects, and plain old tourism.
But the very first time I was here was way back in 1969 when I was on a cross-country camping road trip, and I got my first lesson in ecology on this very island. I was hiking and exploring the island with my friends, and we came across a group of local boys who were camping here with their families as well.
"What do you guys do for fun around here?," we asked, and someone answered, "Sometimes we find nests of sea turtle eggs and have egg fights with each other."
After a moment's pause, he continued, "We don't find too many eggs around here anymore," and in that instant, I connected their egg poaching and destruction with the disappearance of the turtles, and realized the effect we humans have on the species around us.
Now, almost 50 years later, I'm back on Jekyll attending an environmental conference.
Crossing the bridge as I arrived on the island, I was behind a "Project Sea Turtle" van which had the words "Transporting Live Animals" painted on its rear. This precipitated my second moment of realization on Jekyll. "Aren't all cars and trucks transporting live animals?," I wondered, and then realized that most people don't think of humans as animals, too. And that, I realized, is why one group of animals, say, preteen boys in the late '60s, could be so wantonly destructive of another group of animals, in this case, sea turtles.
None of them knew we are all animals.
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