Tamika Wendell Shore

Tam is obsessed with turtles. Her adoptive parents were marine biologists so she has worked with sea creatures from a young age and has a strong affinity for animals. She is a strong confident woman with a bossy streak necessary for her campaigning. She runs a sanctuary called Tammy Turtles that rescues and rehabilitates injured turtles and she personally nicknames and tends to each of her shell covered friends with the help of her small crew. Tam is well known for climbing into the tanks and swimming alongside her turtle friends. She has a turtle 'friend' a male Loggerhead that lives in the ocean outside her house, which was built on the coast and has a tunnel connecting the sea to a large tank inside. He is called Kenya and sometimes comes to work with her. Tam is a sassy lady with a free soul and is unshakable in her beliefs.

Tam is adopted. Her parents found her abandoned on a beach by her parents when she was about 1 year old. A chubby naked baby sitting on the beach in the frothy edge of the sea waving tiny fists out towards the ocean. Her parents are human marine biologists and were so happy to have adopted a Driftling baby as they felt it was a sign from the sea.

Tam had a strong affinity with the sea creatures and loved to work at her parents lab studying and tending to these fishy potatoes and when she was 13 her parents brought in a large Loggerhead turtle that had an injured fin and looked at Tam with soft pleading eyes. Tam bonded with this turtle extra hard and when the time came to release him he promptly turned around and sat down next to Tam, refusing to leave. After picking up the turtle and putting him into the sea, only to have him crawl back out towards Tam, the young girl sat down beside the turtle and pointed to the shore.

"I'll meet you there tomorrow, okay?" She smiled, and the turtle happily turned around and disappeared into the sea foam. Her parents thought that was the last of it, until they found Tam playing with that same turtle the very next day. Unable to separate Tam from turtle, and fascinated by the unusual behaviour of this animal, the family eventually set about a project building a coast side home that housed a large tank feeding out into the ocean for the turtle, who Tam named Kenya, to come and go as he pleased.

Tam's parents disappeared in a diving accident when she was 19 and their bodies were never found. Tam is still angry about losing them because she is a Driftling and she is built for surviving and diving and hates that her parents were not compatible with the sea they loved.