Billy Sandifer, The Padre Protector
Corpus Christi, Texas. Fishing guide, nature guide

Billy Sandifer got fed up with garbage washing up on the beaches of Padre Island, so he organized the Big Shell Cleanup that to date has removed 1.8 million pounds of trash. Sandifer helps protect the endangered Kemp's ridley turtle and compiles reports that have resulted in protected status for some birds on the island.

When people talk about the Padre Island National Seashore (PINS), Billy Sandifer's name inevitably pops up. It's Sandifer, 62, who has been watching over this 60-mile strip of Texas coastline for 14 years, making sure it's kept clean, keeping an eye out for the wildlife, helping to preserve it for future generations.

"People ask why I started the beach cleanup," he says, "and the answer is simply because nobody else would. By now, I can call out a small army whenever we need to do a cleanup." PINS sits at the convergence of Gulf currents, and trash—especially from hurricanes—just seems to find it. Sandifer and a colleague founded the nonprofit Friends of Padre Island in 2008 to help fund the cleanups and make sure they continue into the future.

After coming back from the Vietnam War, Sandifer lived on North Padre for a year and a half. "I'd catch sharks and kill many of them. But then I caught an 81⁄2-foot, 340-pound pregnant bull shark. She was probably 30 years old. All I wanted to do was get her back into the water alive. That changed me.

"I haven't killed a gamefish since," he says. "I encourage catch-and-release on my charters, although clients can keep some species. But we don't kill any of the large species of sharks at all.

"Right now I'm working with the Harte Research Institute to put satellite tags on adult female bull sharks so we can learn about them." He also keeps birding logs for the Texas Ornithological Society and is involved with protecting the Kemp's ridley turtle, which nests on the island.

"My hope is that someday, some schoolteacher will take a bunch of children on a field trip and be walking along the beach. She'll tell them, ‘People used to have to come here to pick up trash that other people threw in the seas.' And the kids won't believe it."