b'P o r tA r a n s a sLEGACY OF TONY AMOS ALIVE AND WELL IN PORT ANow, almost five years after his death, the legend and inspiration of Tony Amos remains strong in Port Aransas and on all our island beaches. The man who built the Amos Rehabilitation Keep (ARK) on the grounds of the University of Texas Marine Science Institute and who saved tens of thousands of marine mammals, land animals and birds, would be pleased to see the level of munic-ipal and private commitment to the protection of ocean life, especially endangered sea turtles.These days, it is the standing practice of City of Port Aransas emergency responders to identify, protect and report sea turtles and their nests on the beach, both for their immediate, physical safety, and so eggs can be collected, protected and incubated, with the hatchings later to be safely released back into the oceantypically at the Padre Island National Seashore.The coordinated and funded protection of sea turtles along the Gulf Coast, both in the United States and in Mexico, has resulted in the successful preservation of a number of endangered species, including the Kemps Ridley, a female of which was spotted by a group of tourists on Tony Amos Beach in Port A, in an incident of beautiful and befitting irony.Amos, who locals remember as the tall, lanky, bearded Brit who spoke in a commanding tone of the Queens English, dedicated much of his career as an ocean scientist and conservationist to the protection of marine wildlife of all varieties, with a special and legendary emphasis on endangered sea turtles and bottlenose dolphins. One of his greatest joys was releasing a successfully rehabil-itated turtle back into the Gulf of Mexicoa very special Kemps Ridley was assigned the high privi-lege of carrying some of Amos ashes to sea at the memorial service for him in September 2017. HeTony Amos photographed at the ARK, 2005.lost his fight with cancer earlier that month, just two days after his 80th birthday.continued118THE COASTAL BEND GUIDE TheCoastalBend.com'