The Turtle Man and the Pirates

I had been working in Dominica since 2003, establishing and developing the Rosalie Sea Turtle Initiative on the east coast.

RoSTI was established to protect and study sea turtles, particularly leatherbacks, and to work with local communities to reduce threats to nesting females and hatchlings.

The 2004–2005 RoSTI Biennium Project Report, prepared by myself and Dr Karen Eckert for WIDECAST and the Government of Dominica, formally records me as: Rowan Byrne — Project Manager, Rosalie Sea Turtle Initiative.

This wasn't occasional wildlife watching. It meant night patrols, nesting-beach monitoring, turtle identification and tagging, hatchling monitoring, community engagement, education and working directly with people living alongside the beaches.

The work could be physically demanding and sometimes monotonous. But then came the 2005 leatherback season. And something else arrived at the same time. Pirates.

Among the material I kept from Dominica is my original production crew badge. It identifies me as: ROWAN BYRNE — ROSTI — CREW.

The production badge itself identifies the project as: A Jerry Bruckheimer Production — Pirates of the Caribbean II & III — A Gore Verbinski Film.

That distinction is important. It is physical evidence from the production itself that connects my name and RoSTI to the Pirates II and III production. This is not a modern recreation. It is an original piece of production material that I retained from the period.

And alongside it I have photographs from the locations themselves.

The production brought an extraordinary collection of people to the island. I met Orlando Bloom, his mother and his dog, and spent time around members of the cast and crew away from the cameras.

I also encountered Keira Knightley, producers and members of the production team, including Jerry Bruckheimer.

And I have a photograph with Martin Klebba, who played Marty aboard the Black Pearl. Klebba's role as Marty is documented in the film's cast history for both Dead Man's Chest and At World's End.

But the photographs aren't really celebrity souvenirs to me. They're field records. They document a strange period in my career when marine conservation and major film production were happening in the same small corner of the Caribbean.

What the finished films cannot show is what was happening outside the frame. The production could see a beach as a location. I saw a nesting beach. That difference matters.

A film crew has to ask: Where can we put the camera? A conservationist has to ask: Where is the turtle going to come ashore tonight? Both questions can be important. But they are not the same question.

My job was to make sure the second one wasn't forgotten. That is why the monitoring work mattered.

For me, that is the most interesting part of the story. It isn't simply that I met actors. It isn't simply that I stood beside the Black Pearl. And it isn't simply that I had a production crew badge.

It is that RoSTI was working on the same beaches and coastline being used by a major international film production. There was a practical environmental interface between the two.

The original monitoring documentation I retained records that relationship. And the crew badge provides another physical link. Together, they tell a much more interesting story than a Hollywood anecdote.

In 2007 I returned to Dominica to continue work with leatherback turtles. This time the technology was very different.

Researchers from Aberystwyth University and RoSTI worked with nesting leatherbacks at Rosalie Beach. Two females, Doris and Mabel, were fitted with satellite transmitters. The tags allowed researchers to follow the turtles after they left Dominica, recording their movements and diving behaviour.

The work provided new information about where Dominica's leatherbacks travelled after nesting. Aberystwyth University reported that the project represented the first satellite tracking of nesting leatherbacks off Dominica.

So there was a remarkable progression: Beach patrols → turtle monitoring → conservation → film-production environmental monitoring → satellite tracking. The Hollywood chapter was unusual. The science was the reason I was there.

The Pirates films turned Dominica into a fantasy world. For a few weeks in 2005, the island became part of the mythology of Captain Jack Sparrow.

But for me, Dominica was never fictional. It was a place where leatherbacks came ashore. Where hatchlings fought their way towards the sea. Where conservationists worked through the night. Where local communities became part of the protection effort. And where science was beginning to reveal where these remarkable animals travelled after leaving the beach.

I happened to experience both worlds. I stood beside the Black Pearl. I walked nesting beaches at night. I met actors, producers and crew. I monitored sea turtles. And somewhere along the way, I became known as the Turtle Man.