OLIVE RIDLEY SEA TURTLES

Want Costa Rica eco tourism at its best?

Witness the incredible arribadas of olive ridley sea turtles.

SURVIVING ONE HUNDRED MILLION YEARS

To put this into a bit of perspective, think about the mighty T Rex. It roamed the North America continent nearly seventy million years ago and, as surely as night follows day, it feasted on these olive ridley sea turtles when they came ashore to lay their eggs.

These ancient animals have flourished for uncountable eons, despite being eaten by just about everything under the sun for millions of generations. Indeed, probably thirty million generations of marine turtles were preyed upon by dinosaurs and other reptiles and fish before the first Tyrannosaurus Rex existed and, since then, another seventy million generations have suffered the same fate. Still, they flourished.

They even survived the greatest mass extinction the world has ever known, the one following the massive meteor strike. In fact, while all of the mighty dinosaurs perished---olive ridley sea turtles lived and flourished.

Over millennia, spreading across the face of the earth, these oldest of all reptiles populated every temperate and tropical ocean. From the Arabian Sea to the Atlantic coast of the American continents and from India to the Pacific coast of the New World, they thrived all around the world.

Untold millions of olive ridley sea turtles.

exp 03/11

From Limitless To Endangered, Almost Overnight

When "I Love Lucy" entertained us on television, the seas were still full of these turtles.

The Pacific coast of Mexico alone hosted ten million olive ridley nests when the first episode of that popular comedy aired in 1951, each with about 100 eggs per clutch.

That's a billion eggs!

A billion sea turtle eggs were laid along just one coast of Mexico that year---and these animals were found virtually every place that there were warm or temperate waters.

The number of eggs was limitless.

So many eggs, so easily gathered, so much money to be made.

During the incredible arribadas, or mass nestings, of olive ridleys, huge pack trains of horses and mules carried out hundreds of millions of eggs each nesting season.

And, so it was that within about two decades, one year found but a single nest on a beach where there had been several hundred thousand nests when we laughed at Lucy the first time.

Alas, this pillaging was being repeated around the world.

Even while the turtles' nests were being assaulted for eggs, country-after-country, including Mexico and Ecuador, set up commercial olive ridley fisheries. The female turtles proved to be easy prey because they gathered in huge numbers close to shore before coming to the ancient beaches to lay in their large arribadas.

The result? From limitless to endangered in a few short years.

A single generation of humans nearly accomplished what seemed impossible: almost wiping out in the blink of an eye what had taken 100,000,000 generations to create.

Arribada Beaches in Costa Rica

On the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica lies a small wildlife refuge called Ostional National Wildlife Refuge. Here, on your Costa Rica vacation, you may witness one of the world's largest remaining arribadas, or mass nestings, of olive ridley sea turtles.

The word "arribada" literally means "arrival" and is an apt descriptor of one of the great, now rare, phenomena of the world.

Each month, typically when the moon is in its final quarter, female olive ridley sea turtles gather just offshore for days and sometimes weeks. Sometimes, there are so many that it looks like you might be able to walk upon their backs for half a mile or more without getting wet.

Then suddenly, they come to the beach en masse.

Though arribadas occur all year, if you want to experience Costa Rica eco tourism at its finest, visit during the green season between June through November. And, don't worry. For most of the green season, you'll still find great Costa Rica weather, click.

Sometimes, hundreds of thousands of olive ridley's come ashore over a few days.

The biggest arribada in recent years was half a million coming ashore to nest to Ostional in 1995---on a beach just a few hundred meters long---and every one of them was female.

Olive ridleys are among the smallest of all marine turtles weighing about 100 pounds or so. For most of their lives, they live far off shore, sometimes more than 2,500 miles out into the Pacific and the sexually mature females (ages 15 and up) return to the same beach from which they hatched.

There are about 40 different beaches along the Pacific coast of Costa Rica where olive ridleys nest (typically in small numbers) but the two most famous for massive arribadas are Nancite and Ostional, both of which are quite close to the very popular Gold Coast tourist destination of Tamarindo.

Nancite lies in Santa Rosa National Park, about an hour north of Tamarindo, and Ostional lies about an hour south of that beach community.

Confused about getting around? Don't worry, click to explore our many Costa Rica maps.

New! Costa Rica Vacations SiteSearch!

Custom Search