Brother Orton King - The Old Hegg Turtle Sanctuary

How often do you get to meet a real person? A funny question I know but I am asking it honestly because we live in a world of phony people and to meet a real person is quite rare. Well Mary and I had the pleasure to meet a real man on Bequia. He calls himself Brother King and his mission is saving turtles at the Old Hegg Turtle Sanctuary.

Our time on Bequia was short so I asked Laury Stowe, with Bequia Dive Adventures, what would be the one thing we should do in Bequia.. Without hesitation he said, go to the turtle sanctuary.

As we pulled up next to the sanctuary we saw a man unlock the door, he turned, stuck out his hand and introduced himself as Brother King. His gaze was confident and his grip was strong and firm and his story is amazing.

Brother Orton King was a fisherman, like his father, and used to dive in the waters around Bequia to spear fish. He began to catch and sell lots of fish to the French in St. Martin but so did everyone else and soon all the large fish and turtles were gone. So they began to catch fish like the parrotfish and then they were gone too. So even today you will not see a large grouper, barracuda, or parrotfish around Bequia. Truly remorseful Brother King admits that he contributed to the demise of so many fish but increasing population on the island, lack of education and a government not interested in helping conserve the ocean have led to a continued decline of fish population around St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

What makes Brother King so remarkable is not just that he understood that the actions of over fishing was and is unsustainable but that he made the decision to do something about it. In 1995 he started a new mission in life; to save as many hawksbill turtles as he could. You see there isn’t much he personally can do about saving fish but, being a man of action, he can help turtles get a chance in life.

Hawksbill turtles come to the beaches of Bequia to lay their eggs. Brother King finds the nests and will then bury the eggs so nobody will find them. Using a tape measure he marks the coordinates in his little book and puts a colored marker under the sand. He returns when the eggs hatch to get the hatchlings and nurses them in his sanctuary until they are old enough to release.

As we wind up our conversation Brother King tells me that he is concerned that people do not understand they cannot kill everything in the ocean. His generation, he says, acted out of ignorance because they were not education and that the hope of the future is with educating children.

Mary visiting with one of the turtles at Old Hegg Turtle Sanctuary

Brother King truly is one of those rare individuals, a man of conviction and action, who is willing to stand against his fellow citizens, government officials and the constant battle for funding to save something nobody else cares about. Showing me the crippled turtle he calls “Old Hegg” he said that this turtle can live up to 200 years. I asked him who will carry on when you are gone and he confidently replied my Son and grandchildren. I truly hope so because we need people with the conviction and action of Brother King for the future health of our oceans.

Watch this wonderful video  by Big Country (Leo) on the work of Orton King to save the Hawksbill turtle from extinction.  If you consider contributing to the work of Brother King, and I hope you do, he can be reached at http://turtles.bequia.net/.