The two thin, coarse haired mounts trudged slowly over the hard packed sand...
The two thin, coarse haired mounts trudged slowly over the hard packed sand, their riders slumped in the saddles. The darkness of the moonless night was almost total. The overcast skies obscured the soft glimmer emitted by the myriad of stars. The only sign of natural radiance came in dim flickers of phosphorescence from the salty Pacific foam that welled up with each breaking wave. The rhythmic beat of the surf pervaded the night, lulling the two men into a state of tranquility. Adrian illuminated the beach ahead, the flashlight beam bouncing with each beat of the horses footsteps. He switched the flashlight off after a few seconds. Batteries were costly. In the brief moment that the artificial light swept over the beach, the men's practiced eyes deftly discerned the telltale sign of tracks on the wet sand. The tide was rising and turtles which lumbered out of the ocean to deposit their eggs on the beach left a clearly marked path, not unlike that of a caterpillar tread.
The year was 1978, the month August, the moon in the waning quarter, the scene Guapil Beach, between the Río Hatillo and the Río Barú. Juan Ramon Segura remembers it well. It was the year he met his future wife, who then lived with her parents near the beach where he and Adrian had come to poach turtle eggs. With frequent stops to dig up eggs, it took the men five hours to cover the nine kilometer stretch of beach. By the time they reached the mouth of the Barú River, the soft brightness of the rising moon was just beginning to filter through the clouds. Home was still a long ride ahead. The small horses were now laden heavy with eggs in addition to their riders. Each man tied two sacks together and slung them over the horses' loins in the style of saddle bags, one sack on each side. The night's work was fruitful, yielding slightly over 2500 eggs, the product of 24 female Olive Ridley Marine Turtles, and one Hawksbill Turtle. The next day Juan Ramon distributed eggs to all the families where he lived, in Lagunas, sharing with them as they had shared with him.
In the year 2001, 23 years later, park guards from the environmental ministry scoured the same expanse of beach nightly for three and a half months, beginning in mid July. They were assisted by volunteers who hailed from local communities like Dominical and Hatillo, other parts of Costa Rica like San Isidro and San Jose, and far away places like London and New York. They spent hundreds of hours walking and searching, always hoping that the next flashlight sweep would illuminate the rounded profile of a turtle in the distance, a rare treat and reward for their effort. The final tally for the season was 65 nests totaling 6822 eggs, all from the Olive Ridley Marine Turtle, slightly over twice the nightly take of 2 poachers 23 years previous. As in 1998, 1999 and 2000 not a single nest of Hawksbill Marine Turtle was found.
The Olive Ridley isn't particularly large as sea turtles go. Weighing in at 40 to 45 kilograms, it is somewhat smaller than the Green Turtle at 200 to 230 kilograms and much smaller than the leatherback at 600 kilograms. Nevertheless, the sight of one dragging herself up on the beach, digging a hole with her back flippers, depositing her eggs, filling in the hole, compacting the sand by repeatedly rising up on all four flippers, then suddenly dropping her hard, flat underplate on the nest with a dull thud and then, on the verge of total exhaustion, trudging ponderously back to the sea, is one of the most emotionally fullfilling experiences I have ever witnessed. These magificient reptiles have been here since before the dinosaurs and I feel privileged to have seen them in their feeble attempt to perpetuate their species in an ever changing and increasingly threatening environment.
Turing the year 2001, over 80 dead or dying Olive Ridley Turtles washed up on the beaches between Matapalo and Uvita. Biologists don't agree on the cause of death of these turtles, but all the signs indicate intoxication by some unidentified substance. In two cases, vultures that had fed on the turtle carcasses, were found dead next to the turtles' remains. In nature, female turtles fall prey to Jaguars and Pumas during the short time they leave the water to deposit their eggs. A female will lay two to five clutches of eggs once every three or four years. The incubating eggs, buried in the sand, are not only vulnerable to erosion by the surf but also to predation from racoons, coyotes and coatis. The newly hatched baby turtles on their walk from nest to sea, must face these same predators plus the threat of white-faced capuchin monkeys, hawks, vultures, sea birds and crabs. When they reach the ocean, untold numbers of predatory fish and other sea life greet them in anticipation of an easy meal.
When humans enter the picture, the marine turtle's outlook for survival deteriorates even futher. Dogs and cats, domesticated by people, are the principal animal predators of marine turtles and their eggs. Humans themselves take a higher toll than anything in the animal world. Driven by the fallacy that turtle eggs possess aphrodisiac qualities which bestow enhanced potency on male consumers, men flock to the beaches during turtle season to reap the harvest. Traditionally, the eggs are swallowed raw from a small glass, usually spiced with tabasco and lemon juice to quell the nauseating taste and the feel of a raw egg sliding down the throat.
The soft, leathery-shelled, golf ball-sized turtle eggs find a ready market in bars and cantinas all over Costa Rica. A poacher can expect to sell his booty for 50 to 75 colones per egg or 5000 to 7500 colones for an average nest of 100 eggs (This was the price when the exchange rate was 278 colones per dollar.) The public can expect to pay about three times that price. If a poacher can pilfer only two nests a week, he will make more money than by working on a construction job, where he would have to labor eight to ten hours a day, six days a week. Without the intervention of an environmentally aware and concerned public, poachers take about 98 percent of the eggs.
Many concerned people are working long, hard hours to divert marine turtles from their slow steady path to extinction. The Asociación de Amigos de la Naturaleza del Pacífico Central y Sur (ASANA) has, since 1987, carried out a project to rescue the turtles. Members of ASANA, volunteers, Rural Police and Wildlife Inspectors patrol the beaches during turtle season in an effort to find the eggs before the poachers. These volunteer workers remove the eggs and transfer them to a hatchery, sometimes called a nursery, where they are buried and incubated under protected conditions similar to natural incubation on the beach. The eggs hatch between 45 and 60 days later.
Soon thereafter, the newly emerged Olive Ridley Turtles are released on the beach and walk a short distance to the spent waves sliding slowly up on the sand. There the silver dollar-sized reptiles enter the Pacific Ocean where they will spend the rest of their lives. Between 1997 and 2002 ASANA released over 27,000 Olive Ridley Marine Turtle hatchlings. Children from 14 local schools have participated in the releases. A child who once holds a tiny turtle in his or her hand, sets it free on the sand and watches it struggle to reach the water will never swallow a raw turtle egg. Not only that, but that youngster will exert a strong influence on parents and other adults. ASANA has received phone calls from angry parents who say that their children won't allow them to eat turtle eggs. The enraged adults blame ASANA's marine turtle rescue project and environmental education program for this predicament.
Juan Ramon Segura is one former turtle egg poacher who has joined the ranks of those trying to save these magnificient creatures. He is now Vice President of ASANA. Adrian, his companion on that dark night so many years ago, still believes the old wives tale about turtle eggs enhancing male virility.
The turtle rescue project begins each year in Mid-July. ASANA assists with hatchery projects at Matapalo and the Hacienda Barú National Wildlife Refuge. There are organized beach patrols at Barú, Guapil, Hatillo and Matapalo Beaches. Volunteers are welcome. Donations are welcome, and funds donated are used to purchase flashlights, batteries, battery chargers, rubber boots, rain coats and food for volunteers. Sometimes people loan horses so that park rangers and voluntary game wardens may have the advantage of patroling on horseback. When they locate a turtle nest, they radio to volunteers who go to retrieve the eggs and transfer them to the nearest hatchery. All volunteers are trained by experienced members of ASANA.
Would you like to help? Would you like to come along on a nocturnal beach patrol, participate in a hatchling release? Or would you simply like to contribute to the effort financially? Call the ASANA office, 787 0254 or email asana@racsa.co.cr
If any of you ladies a would really like to help, you have a unique opportunity to get involved in a way that will make a big difference. It will be fun too, since it gives you the opportunity to play games with the male ego. Here's what you have to do: When you overhear men talking about eating turtle eggs, simply say "Hey guys, my boyfriend doesn't need to take anything at all to prop up his libido, but if you boys have a problem, why don't you try Viagra? They say it really works."
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