Saving Leatherback Turtles!

Last weekend I was lucky enough to participate in an amazing experience going to a reserve to learn about and help the endangered species of leatherback turtles. The leatherbacks are one of the most ancient species in existence dating back to the time of the dinasours, they are in danger of exstinction from egg and meat poachers as well as fishing nets and all the other destructive human forces. While egg poaching is illegal mayn restruants still serve turtle eggs some of which are legal some are not, so if you ever see turtle eggs on a menu don’t order them! Anyway this trip was organized by my program and my group went with a group from UCR. Went on a little boat to get to the reserve and met the people who work and live there. There were girls from Spain and France and the coordinator was from England. I was so impressed by the passion they all have for the work they do. They live without all the modern conviences (electiricy) they are used to in an extremely harsh climate to help this species. Every night they patrol the beach for 4-6 or more hours to proctect the turtles from poachers, tag and measure the turtles they come across and move eggs and make new nests in safer grounds. First we learned more about the turtles and learned how to make nests than divided into patrol groups. I went at 8 at night with 4 or more other students and our leader was a girl from Spain. It was very cool to get to talk and listen to the different accent and words that are very different from Costa Rica Spanish, I tried to adjust to using the tu form and saying vale basically every other word. We walked for at least an hour without seeing anything except turtle tracks of false exits (when the turtle comes to shore but does not lay eggs) these we had to erase with our feet and sticks so poachers would not know the turtles were there. We finally thought we foudna turtle and all got excited and tried to get behind where it would see us after waiting a few minutes we realized it was just a big rock! The beach is completely dark and we only use the red light to see when there is a turtle so the whole night it is easy to trip over rocks, branches, fall in sand pits plus dodge the big waves…buut we finally found a turtle who was making a nest. It was definalty one of the coolest things ive ever seen..to get to experience watching this ancient animal lay her eggs in her nautral habitat was just incredible they truly look like they could be in Jurassic park, just watching her make the nest and listen to the noises she made was soo awesome. We measured her, took her eggs and me and my friend went to make a new nest..you have to dig through the sand as far down as you can which gets very tiring and then redeposit the eggs. It was so cool to feel the eggs there soo different from like chicken eggs and to know that there were baby turtles inside! We could look up at the sky while we were sitting in the sand and see a few shooting stars! After the exhileration of seeing andhelping our first turtle we continued on and saw at least three more and did a lot a lot more erasing of tracks…I got to help measure another turtle and really appreciate how big they are if they hit you with one of their fins you could really get hurt. we finally were on our way back after 6 hours of walking the beach when it started to down poar annd we found another turtle even though our shift was supposed to be over 2 hours earlier once you find a turtle you cant leave it. We finally did make it back and passed out in our sandy, wet beds. Next day went walking around the property with a girl from France where we heard howler monkeys, saw poison dart frogs, snakes and butterflies. Went in the ocean in the afternoon and All very exausghsted from night before we waited for our shifts that night to start. Tonight my shift was at ten and with a new guide named Scott who was from England. It was nice to have a little break from Spanish and of course enjoyed the English accent very much, was albe to learn a lot more about the reserve and turtles from him since I could actually understand everything he said. He was super interesting and outgoing I was the only one that kept up with his walking pace which could really have been a jog so we were able to talk a lot about the work and condiciones here. However we found a turtle right away and I volunteered to take the eggs. I got right down next to the flippers and tail of the turtle and almost fell in the nest many times grabbing all the eggs, there were over a hundred and had to get them all before she started to cover them. Was carrying the bag of eggs away when we found another turtle! So we had to split up so we could make new nests and get the new eggs as well..i went to work making a new nest for the first eggs we got and buryed and counted them. We came across a lot of turtles and por dicha did less erasing..were walking back just talking when we saw a white light across the beach which means leave bc there are poachers however than we realized we might have accidently walked past the reserve! At the same time we found another turtle, scott went to look for mark posts to figure out where we were but couldn’t find any..we radioed back to the security guard and finally after some miscommunication and scott using some interesting spanlish with ltos of English curse words mixed in go him to shine the flash light from the reserve…we were actually past the reserve about ten minutes and in poacher territory..we had to leave the turtle b/c techinaclly it was not our land. Got back completely covered in wet sand and passed out again. Next day all just waited around to be able to be in the nice cool bus and sleep. Made it back to san jose and I went out on my first solo adventure in the city to find a friend from highschool who was staying in san jose for one night on he way to el Salvador…asked police men for directions but luckily found the hostel without a problem, had a nice dinner and catch up and finally got back to my bed in Heredia! I still have some fly and misiquito bites to remind me of the weekend but all the work was soo soo vale la pena (worth every second!). Definatly a once in a life time experience I will never forget.