Those Turtles Were Kung Fu Fighting For Their Lives!

Unfortunately, sea turtles can't move as fast as lightning. So I took a weekend from my busy schedule to assist them in their fight for life.

A group of UPeace students and I headed out to Punta Mala beach, a bit south of Jaco, on the Pacific side of the country, where we met up with an organization dedicated to protecting sea turtles. We volunteered for their effort for the weekend.

It is said that only one sea turtle will live to adulthood from 1000 eggs. An average female sea turtle starts laying eggs around age 20, and can lay up to 100 eggs at one time. The temperature in which they develop determines the sex of the turtle. There are natural predators, but the biggest threat that faces these amazing creatures is poaching. A poacher can get between two and four USD per egg as they're used in a popular drink and some fancy recipes and superstitions here in Costa Rica.

We started our volunteering with a night patrol of a 5km section of beach at 9PM. We were hiking along the beach without lights. Lights would give away our position to any potential poachers in waiting. They also startle the turtles. After a few stubbed toes and linking arms for our own safety, we came to a small river. We had to cross to continue our patrol, but the water was only a couple feet deep at the deepest. Easy. The hard part was that this particular river is crocodile habitat. Yes, crocodiles - the ones with big mouths that bite and don’t let go. The one guy that was leading our volunteer team pulled out a tiny AA-flashlight and scanned the water for signs of the scary snappers. Everything looked OK so we pushed on to the other side.

Finally, we came across the path that a sea turtle makes in the sand on her way up the beach to lay her eggs. We followed the path up and lo and behold, a big ole sea turtle was making her way back down to the sea. We watched her disappear into the waves and the darkness and then we went to find her nest.

I don't think I'll ever understand how she managed to dig such a hole, and cover it up as if she'd never been there. The plan was to dig up her eggs and bring them to a protected environment. So, we dug them up. She laid 84 eggs, which resembled very soft ping-pong balls. We put them in a plastic bag and reburied them in order to complete our patrol. Upon our return, we retrieved them and brought them to the hatchery where we buried them properly (without the plastic bag). The night was finished!

In the morning, we dug up old nests that were ruined by flooding. All the eggs "drowned" so our task was to dig them up and prepare the area for future nests. We dug up 22 nests of destroyed eggs. However, we found one lone survivor that had managed to hatch but couldn't manage to dig its way out of the sand. It was severely dehydrated and very weak. We put it in a bucket of water while it adjusted to life. When it was moving like healthy little sea turtles do, we decided to take it closer to the ocean and release it.As the tiny newborn turtle made it's way to the sea I reflected upon the work being done at this facility. We put so much energy into ensuring that these turtle eggs would be safe. We gave them a leg up in the struggle to be born. We focused so much effort into their lives before they're actually alive, all I could think to say in my head to this little guy as he was pummeled by wave after wave was, "OK, little guy, now go be a turtle." His entire ecological niche and significance was lost due to my focus on just making sure he'd have a chance to be born. Either way, it was a beautiful thing to witness his release and ponder his future existence.
We left Punta Mala, sore and exhausted, and made our way to Manuel Antonio National Park. We spent the afternoon protecting our lunch from extremely aggressive White Faced Capuchin monkeys and raccoons. We swam and hiked in the national park, and then we headed home. Job well done. Hi-ya!