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Turtle
Watching in Costa Rica
"Everyone ought to see a turtle nesting. It is an impressive thing to
see, the pilgrimage of a sea creature back to the land its ancestors left a
hundred million years ago. The nesting rites begin, for the watcher, at least,
when the turtle strands in the surf. That part is hard to watch, those minutes
when she comes up with the breakers and stays there for a while, rising with a
wave then bumping back softly on the sand, making up her mind. She blinks and
peers, turns her nose down and presses it onto the wave-washed bottom, then
looks up and all around and blinks some more. She is clearly making a
decision. What her criteria are, nobody knows ...The turtle is wild and
skittish when she first touches shore, and even the light of a match struck
far up the beach may send her back to the sea."
Sea turtles have probably been nesting on the beaches of Costa Rica since time
immemorial, but it's only been within the past 30 years or so that research
has been publicized about it. This world awareness began when Dr. Archie Carr,
the founder of the Caribbean Conservation Corporation, came to Tortuguero in
his search for the nesting sites of the green sea turtle. His descriptions of
the primordial instincts of these amazing creatures not only helped to ensure
Tortuguero's national park designation, but the world's perception of Costa
Rica in what was then not even called ecotourism.
People have been coming to Costa Rica for decades to help preserve these
endangered animals, by tagging as well as assisting in other research.
Prized for their shells, eggs and meat, turtles have been hunted by indigenous
people in all of Latin America, but it wasn't until the arrival of Europeans
that the numbers begin "harvested" started to become dangerously
high. Turtle soup became a delicacy in the late 1800s, and by the late 1950s
were taking nearly every female green turtle arriving in Tortuguero was being
taking for the export market.
This, combined with local poaching and the dangers turtles face from fishing
nets and natural predators has brought world sea turtle populations to
dangerously low levels. The work of people like Dr. Archie Carr made the world
aware of the potential loss of these beautiful creatures, and protection
programs now exist in nearly every corner of the globe. Although still in
somewhat threatened status, most sea turtle species' population are
stabilized.
Costa Rica's combination of an enormous percentage of protected costal land,
and its location as part of the narrowest portion of the Central American
isthmus creates a nearly unrivaled number of nesting sites for five varieties
of endangered and /or threatened sea turtles. In fact, Tortuguero National
Park and Ostional -Nancite Beach in Santa Rosa National Park are two of the
Western Hemisphere's most important turtle hatcheries.
The importance of these, and other nesting sites such as Las Baulas National
Marine Park, Boca Rio Matina, Gandoca-Manzanillo National Wildlife Refuge and
Corcovado National Park are some of the main reasons that so many nature
enthusiasts head for Costa Rica annually.
Some come to volunteer in turtle research foundation activities, but the
majority comes for the profound experience of watching the age-old ritual of
the "arribada"-or egg laying- of these magnificent reptiles. Close
to 8.000 olive ridley turtles are said to come ashore nightly onto Santa
Rosa's Playa Nancite-surely a breathtaking sight for those lucky enough to
experience it!
It's impossible to overstate the importance of discretion when viewing turtles
while they are laying eggs or hatching. Guides and volunteers are often on
site to keep onlookers from disturbing the process, as it's highly possible to
disrupt the female enough that she'll actually turn back to the sea before
completing her task.
The turtle that nest on Costa Rica's shores range in size from the 40 kilo
olive ridley to the mighty leatherback, that can reach lengths of 2.5 meters
and weigh in at nearly 700 kilos. But hatchings of each species face the same
threats after they bite through the rubbery surface of their eggs. Instinct
drives them all toward the open sea, where as they cross the sand they run the
gamut of dangers between sea gulls, crabs, stray dogs and unfortunately some
times humans. The one out of every 5.000 that make it to deep waters and
survives to adulthood will join the ranks that return to mate and nest off on
Costa Rica's protected waters repeating the amazing ritual to which they're
instinctively driven.
The black sand beach of Tortuguero draws the largest nesting population of
green turtles, Chelonia mydas, in the Atlantic Ocean. Green turtles have been
hunted for centuries for their meat and eggs, which are considered delicacies.
They are still hunted extensively in some areas, although this is illegal
throughout the world.
The southern Tortuguero beach is important nesting habitat for
leatherbacks, Dermochelys coriacea, the only sea turtle without a hard shell.
Leatherbacks are killed for their body oil, which is used for fuel and
medicinal purposes.
These gentle giants are also vulnerable to marine pollution. Leatherbacks may
die after eating floating plastic bags, which they apparently mistake for
jellyfish -- their favorite food.
All sea turtle eggs are considered delicacies, believed by many cultures to be
aphrodisiacs. Marine pollution, incidental capture in shrimp nets and habitat
destruction also threaten sea turtles.
All sea turtle species are declining. Of the seven species of sea turtles six
are listed as endangered and one as threatened.
There are only three nesting places in the world and Playa Grande is one of
them. The National Marine Park Las Baulas of Guanacaste and the wildlife
Refuge of Tamarindo located in Playa Grande, Guanacaste, is the nesting place
of the leatherback turtle (dermochelys coriacea) known as the Baula turtle,
being the most important in Costa Rica.
The nesting season begins on October 20th and ends on February 15th, making
Playa Grande one of Costa Rica's most popular tourist attractions.
Diving | Sportfishing | Surfing
| White water rafting | Turtle watching
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