SAVE SEA TURTLES

When Columbus discovered (and named) Costa Rica, there were so many sea turtles that mariners lost in the fog sometimes found land by listening to the sounds tens of thousands of flippers heading to nesting beaches.

As recently as a couple of dozen decades ago, fishermen often could not set their nets because marine turtles were so thick that there was no room to fish!

No more. Sadly, in just a few decades, these animals---which have survived for some 150,000,000 years---have been reduced to a tiny, tiny fraction of their former numbers.

Actually, they've probably been around for a few million years more than that, as evidenced by the discovery off a Scottish Island of a 164,000,000 year old sea turtle fossil, click.

That’s where Costa Rica vacations and you come in.

It wasn’t all that long ago that hundreds of millions of these reptiles swam the oceans, laying billions of eggs each year.

Where? Just about everywhere that there were beaches----and there are a lot of beaches worldwide. The east coast, the west coast, the gulf coast of the U.S. Thousands of beaches in Central and South America. Thousands of beaches from China to India, Indonesia to Australia, Europe to the Middle East.

Somehow, in the span of just a few decades, this seemingly limitless number of animals has dwindled to the point that all but one species are endangered and some are critically endangered (i.e., on the verge of extinction).

Learn more from Seaworld's great Marine Turtles Info Book, click here

WE happened to them.

We’d wait for them to lay their eggs along Mexican beaches and then dig up millions, taking them by pack trains of burros to market. We’d kill them by the millions in Ecuador so that we could sell turtle leather shoes in Italy (and other places), or make combs and trinkets. We relentlessly killed them everywhere on the planet.

Millions of eggs were (and still are) sold in bars to drunken patrons across the world as aphrodisiacs. Vast numbers were accidentally killed by drowning in huge ocean fishing nets or barbed tuna hooks. And, of course, innumerable beaches now sport hotels, resorts, and housing developments.

But in this real-life drama, there are lots of folks who deserve to play the hero.

There are the visionaries who preserved the largest green sea turtle nesting site in central America at Costa Rica's Tortuguero National Park, click.

There are the hundreds of students from around the world who help preserve these magnificent animals when they study abroad in Costa Rica, click.

There are governments which, once part of the problem, are now working to be part of the solution. Thanks to the (belated) leadership of the U.S. (joined by many countries), thousands of sea turtles are saved from drowning each year due to escape hatches in fishing nets and barbless tuna hooks.

And governments, like Costa Rica, that have taken the lead in conservation efforts years and years before it became politically fashionable and are committed to sustainability.

And important conservation organizations around the world like the World Wildlife Fund and Sierra Club. And there are hundreds of people who simply want to make the planet better by volunteering their services. These are the unpaid heroes who take volunteer vacations, click

Don't Forget Costa Rica Ecotourism

Which brings me to YOU. Every year more than 50,000 people travel Costa Rica to watch the sea turtles nesting at Tortuguero. Thousands more visit other nesting beaches and stand in awe on their Costa Rica vacation.

We have the ability to destroy anything in our path but the capacity to make the world better.

So, come to Costa Rica. Enjoy the beaches, the mountains, the volcanoes, the birds and fish, the sea turtles.

Literally, Costa Rica ecotourism is helping save these creatures.

And, in your own way, help save these magnificent creatures for YOUR CHILDREN AND THEIR CHILDREN.

I also recommend supporting organizations like Pretoma, click

How sad to have this magnificent animal which has roamed the oceans since the days of dinosaurs exterminated while on our watch.

Unfortunately, sometimes enforcement practices are simply pathetic.

This is particularly noteworthy in its malaise about the incidental deaths of so many sea turtles by commercial shrimp fishermen.

Needless deaths because there is a simple device called a "turtle excluder device" that saves these magnificent creatures from drowning.

It's a device that Costa Rica agreed to require as part of a marine turtle treaty but has not rigorously implemented.

Sometimes, there are consequences. The United States government has banned the importation of Costa Rica shrimp in retaliation for the disregard of the treaty and an incentive to Costa Rica to clean up its act.

Bravo!

Now, if only the world were to step up and enforce bans against on China and Japan for the inhumane and wasteful practice of shark finning.

Your probably do, too.

But, there's a dark side to our desire for this tasty morsel.

Discovery News reports:

"For sea turtles, fisheries bycatch is the most serious, acute threat to the persistence of their populations," lead author Bryan Wallace [of the Duke University study in the next section of this page] told Discovery News, adding that shrimp trawling is one of the most damaging practices.

"Anywhere from 5 to 20 pounds of bycatch -- turtles, fish, mammals, invertebrates, coral -- is removed from the ocean to catch enough for just a pound of shrimp," Wallace, a science adviser for Conservation International, said. "In the process, the destruction to ocean habitats left in the wake of a trawl net is very much like clear-cutting and bulldozing a tropical forest. That habitat is changed dramatically, and its recovery, if possible, will take a very long time."

So much needless death and destruction so we can mindlessly enjoy a shrimp cocktail appetizer.

2010 World Update of Marine Turtle Losses

Click to read more at Duke University News.

From Sea Turtles to Tourism in Costa Rica

To Marine Turtle main page, click

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