Undersea Photography Sparked Bahamian Conservation Movement

by Larry Smith

Were it not for a series of serendipitous events decades ago, many of the Bahamas' most precious natural resources might have been lost forever. And it all began with the first attempts at underwater photography.

The Bahamas featured prominently in early undersea filmmaking because of our crystal-clear, unpolluted waters. The Williamson Photosphere (whose rusting hulk lies somewhere in the national archives), was a submersible device used to film the world's first underwater movie in the Bahamas.

Based on Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, this silent film was a major box office hit back in 1916. The photosphere was later involved in recovering coral from the Bahamas to build a live reef display at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History. And it served for a time as a unique underwater post office, where collectible letters were stamped and posted from Sea Floor, Bahamas.

In 1930, after the American inventors Otis Barton and William Beebe made headlines with a record dive off Bermuda in their newly-developed bathysphere, this submersible became a star attraction at the Chicago World's Fair. And Barton headed for the Bahamas to shoot a movie called Titans of the Deep in 1938.

One of the men who worked on that film was Ilia Tolstoy, a colourful grandson of the great 19th century Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy. He had been a Russian cavalry officer before emigrating to the US in 1924, where he became associated with the New York Museum of Natural History.

Tolstoy took part in filming expeditions to the Canadian wilderness and spent time in Alaska helping to plan Mount McKinley National Park. As a prominent member of the Explorers Club he was involved in several film ventures and expeditions around the world experimenting with underwater photography.

And following his work with Titans of the Deep, he was instrumental in setting up Marineland, the world's first oceanarium based at St Augustine, Florida. Originally called Marine Studios, it was the place where captive dolphins were bred for the first time, and it became a fashionable hangout for writers and film producers, as well as a major tourist attraction.

Tolstoy's most notable exploit was a 10-month trek across Tibet in 1942 as an envoy of the US government, when he met the Dalai Lama, who was then barely seven years old. Many of his photographs from that wartime expedition are presented in a book called A Portrait of Lost Tibet  by Rosemary Jones Tung.

After the war, Tolstoy was a frequent visitor to the Bahamas and became increasingly concerned about environmental degradation: "I saw the ghosts of (extinct) Passenger Pigeons in the air," he later wrote. And in 1953 he began leveraging his international contacts to push the idea of setting aside some islands in the Bahamas as protected areas.

At about the same time, a Columbia University graduate student named Carleton Ray was working on a photo book about marine life (with a fellow student named Elgin Ciampi). Like others before them, they had decided that the Bahamas was the place for underwater photography.

"The 1950s were early in the days of scuba-diving and fish-watching, and during our visits we saw some intriguing things," Ray wrote in the 1998 edition of the Bahamas Journal of Science. "We became aware of so-called spear-fishing contests, which consisted of contestants piling speared fish on shore, the winner being the one with the weightiest, wasteful pile. So we began to think of conservation in terms of no-take zones and/or underwater parks. We formulated our thoughts for the introduction to (our book), the Underwater Guide to Marine Life."

In the book, Ray called for some of the best marine areas to be protected in the same way that wilderness is protected on land. These "undersea wilderness areas" would serve as replenishment zones for marine life to repopulate surrounding areas, while preserving the beauty of coral gardens as valuable tourist attractions and natural laboratories.

"Only one marine protected area was known to us at the time (off the Florida Keys), so we sent drafts of our introduction to influential conservationists to try out our idea. Fortunately, one of our reviewers was Richard Plough (of the American Museum of Natural History) whom Tolstoy had also contacted. Plough thought it self-evident that Ilia and I should join forces."

In the meantime, Tolstoy had presented his idea to the British governor of the Bahamas and had given a talk at the Chamber of Commerce in Nassau. "It was indeed a memorable day when on February 13, 1956 I received a letter from the governor confirming that the Crown had set aside approximately 22 miles of the Exuma Cays (providing that) some organization would undertake to explore the possibility further and be able to give concrete recommendations to the Bahamian government."

By January 1958 Tolstoy and Ray had organised their Exuma expedition. A collection of big-name conservationists like Robert Porter Allen of the Audubon Society and Bahamian experts like Oris Russell and Herbert McKinney spent a week travelling by boat from Norman’s Cay to Conch Cut. They concluded that the area had "essentially unspoiled natural conditions with unmodified associations of plants, animals, earth processes, and those intangible elements that combine to give an area its outstanding character.

"The Exuma Cays park under consideration should be regarded as only the beginning of a conservation movement that is vital to the Bahamas as a whole. It will also be a beginning of a new concept, integrated land-and-sea conservation, in which the Bahamas will take the lead and show the way to other nations throughout the world," their report said.

The survey team called for an organisation modelled on the British National Trust to acquire lands and manage protected areas throughout the Bahamas. This organisation - which was created by parliament in 1959 - would be the government's advisor on conservation matters and seek to educate Bahamians on the value of their natural heritage.

And 50 years later, a new Exuma survey has recently been completed. Tolstoy died in 1970 and Carleton Ray (now in his 80s but still working as a research professor at the University of Virginia) was unable to participate this time around, but a number of Bahamian and international scientists made the trip aboard a research vessel donated by the John G Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. They included marine, plant and bird specialists from the American Museum of Natural History, the College of the Bahamas, The Nature Conservancy and several Florida universities.

"Our mission was to follow in the footsteps of the original expedition and do a rapid ecological assessment of the Exuma park as it is today," said Dr Ethan Freid, a Tampa University botanist with long experience in the Bahamas. "We found the vegetation to be largely intact, although there were more invasives like Casuarinas which have to be controlled."

Marine biologist Dr Dan Brumbaugh of the American Museum of Natural History said the park is doing what it was created to do: "There are more and bigger fish than in other areas, which is reassuring, and there are good size fish just outside the park boundaries too. It is distinctly different from what you see around New Providence, for example, and the reefs are healthier with more parrot fish present."

Leno Davis of The Nature Conservancy's Nassau office cited the presence of garbage washed ashore on the cays as something that was difficult for the park wardens to control. And Everton Joseph of the College of the Bahamas said the team had found two Kirkland Warblers - a rare migratory bird that has never been reported in the Exumas before.

Herpetologist Sandra Buckner noted three successful populations of iguana in the park, where none had existed 50 years ago. But all the scientists were concerned about the ecological impact of a massive population explosion of hutias. Once thought to be extinct, these small mammals that were a favourite food of the Lucayans were put on several cays years ago and are now eating themselves out of existence.

"There are large areas on Shroud Cay with no vegetation as a result, " Dr Freid said. "This is an ecological conundrum as the hutia is the only endemic land mammal in the Bahamas, yet it is radically affecting the environment. This is something that has to be carefully managed by the BNT."

After leaving the Exumas, the researchers surveyed the Grassy Cays area of South Andros to provide documentation for a proposed new national park. They found the region subject to intense fishing pressure with traps, camps and boats everywhere, as well as evidence that nesting seabirds were being shot.

"There are fewer and smaller fish and the reefs are subject to many of the same pressures found in more populated areas," Dr Brumbaugh noted. "There is a small amount of live coral and lots of disease. It was kind of sobering to be candid."

But on land, the scientists reported that the natural coppice and mangrove forests were intact except for small patches of Casuarina that could easily be removed. And they found evidence of iguanas everywhere, indicating that a new park would be a good opportunity to protect these endangered reptiles.

Today, the Bahamas National Trust administers a network of more than a dozen national parks stretching from Abaco and Grand Bahama in the north to Inagua in the south. But as development pressures grow, there are rising calls for the government to set aside more of our natural patrimony.

"This is the time to propose new areas for protection," BNT executive director Eric Carey told me. "And South Andros is definitely on our list. The report of the survey team will contribute good science to prove that this area is important to preserve for future generations, just as the Exuma park was 50 years ago."

As Carleton Ray put it in his 1998 article, "Serendipitous events, decades ago, initiated the Bahamas protected area system under the jurisdiction of the BNT...(but) conservation must be guided by careful strategic planning involving the application of the best scientific information...while also generating considerable social and political will.

"Protected areas must be seen as vital future tools—as safeguards against overuse and abuse, as reserves for living and physical resources, and as places for research, learning and inspiration."

Comments

[Erasmus Folly]

Great article Larry. We do need greater environmental protection. Bahamians need to realize that the environment is to us what oil is to Saudi Arabia. The wonderful difference being that we can sell our resource while protecting and renewing it, they can't.

Come on Bahamians! Wake up and realise that you live in Paradise and that you need to protect it! This is our EDEN! Stop slunkin!

[Carleton Ray]

Very nice article. Only one thing -- I'm not retired. It's more like a retread at age 80, still studying walruses in the Bering Sea, and more healthy than I deserve. So, why quit?

[Debbie Bird]

We at the Adventure Learning Center are researching and beginning our trek of preserving the coppice and wetland area we use for education. The Adventure Learning Center is located off Marshall Road, South Beach, New Providence. We hope to have scientist come in and guide us in this project. This article has given me some names to contact and references to use. To Mr. Ray, I hope one day to have the honor of meeting you.