The Story
The Story Behind the Photograph
On a dark beach on the Caribbean island of Dominica in 2006, a marine biologist crouched in the sand and raised his camera. In front of him, a leatherback sea turtle hatchling — barely a few inches long — was making its first and most dangerous journey: from the nest to the sea.
Rowan Byrne had travelled to Dominica in 2003 to establish and manage sea turtle conservation work at Rosalie Beach, on the island's Atlantic coast. The work was associated with the Rosalie Sea Turtle Initiative (RoSTI), a community-based conservation project working to protect nesting leatherback turtles and their eggs from poaching and other threats.
The photograph he made that night was a field image, taken in the course of conservation work. It was not made for a gallery, a magazine or a postal service. It was made because the moment was there, and because documenting it was part of the work.
Eighteen years later, on 11 June 2024, the United States Postal Service officially issued the Protect Sea Turtles Forever stamp pane in Corpus Christi, Texas. One of the six designs in the pane — the leatherback — carried Rowan Byrne's 2006 photograph. The USPS stamp announcement identifies him by name: 'Rowan Byrne, photographer.'
