Sea spray drifts along the black sand beach and the adjacent jungle like a cloud in the moonlight as an Olive Ridley sea turtle lumbers up the beach to deposit more than one hundred eggs in the sand. She is following in the flipper steps of her foremothers, completing her mission in life and digging a sandy nest to help her species survive. The female turtle is unaware of the many dangers that await her offspring; she doesn’t even see the small group of people huddled in the dark observing her every move in the surreal glow of red-filtered flashlights.

Thousands of turtles come up to nest on the beaches of the Osa Peninsula every year, and many are greeted with foes not friends. Poaching and eating of sea turtle eggs is a popular yet illegal pastime in Costa Rica. The myth that sea turtle eggs have aphrodisiac effects has been proven false by scientific investigation and still the demand for them in bars and restaurants throughout Central America is high. This drives people from all over the southern Pacific zone to travel to Río Oro to steal thousands of eggs every night. Stray dogs, a major problem in all of Costa Rica, also create havoc for nesting sea turtle populations in the Osa. Sea turtle nests need approximately 45-50 days incubation in the sand before babies emerge to scramble down the beach into the surf. Dogs use their acute sense of smell to locate these underground chambers at any point and decimate the nests and/or hatchlings within minutes. Dogs dig up, eat, and destroy so many nests that Río Oro strays have beautiful fur coats and huge, distended bellies.

People have been watching sea turtles nest in Carate and Río Oro for hundreds of years, but now there are a few that are a little different. There is a new presence on the beach: the turtle crew from National Save the Sea Turtle Foundation, NSTSTF, and Salvamento Internacional de la Tortuga del Mar, SITM. We sit very still until the turtle digs her nest and starts laying her eggs; then we spring into action. Red lights flash on, measuring tapes and waterproof notebooks are brought out of backpacks. The turtle is descended upon; one person measures her shell as another records everything, tags are broken out and the turtle is marked; her tracks are measured and she is inspected for any distinguishing marks or injuries, all in the five minutes it takes the turtle to lay her eggs. She finishes, camouflages her nest and, as she crawls back to the water, the turtlers start to excavate her nest. One by one the eggs are placed into a plastic container and packed away into the night to be transplanted, along with many others, to a safe haven: a guarded rectangular enclosure with chicken wire walls on the north end of the beach.

A small crew of biologists, volunteers and members of the local community work together to protect the eight-kilometer section of sea turtle nesting beach at Carate and Río Oro, located along the Osa Peninsula coastline in southern Costa Rica just south of the spectacular Corcovado National Park. The turtle research crew patrols beaches nightly and monitors nests daily, during peak nesting season, in order to keep track of sea turtle activity in Río Oro and Carate.

The 170 nests relocated to the hatchery in the 2002 season produced 10,408 hatchling sea turtles that were released into the sea. The hatchery had a success rate of 62.3%, which is comparable to other Olive Ridley hatchery programs in the world, and higher than at the Cayman Island Turtle Farm. Forty percent of all nests laid between Lagunas Pejeperrito-Pejeperro were poached by people or dogs, this means of the approximately 3000 nests laid per year over 1200 nests don’t ever hatch because of human-related activity. This does not even include all of the possible threats in nature: tidal inundation, natural predators (ie: coatis, vultures, pelicans, etc.), beach erosion, bacterial or fungal invasion, etc. By protecting a small percent of the eggs we can guarantee that at least a few hatchlings made it to the ocean in 2002. Seventy-four nesting females were measured and tagged, commencing the first international tagging program on the Osa Peninsula. Tagging helps us keep track of the number of females in the population as well as figuring out their nesting intervals.

Working on the beach at night is a hard yet fulfilling job; there are poachers, stray dogs, horses, pigs and other non-native threats to the sea turtles. What keeps us going is the idea that we can make a difference by showing our interest and motivation in conserving and protecting this endangered species.

In addition, we launched an environmental education program focusing on the Colegio de Puerto Jiménez. Eco-tourism students received courses in biology, conservation of natural resources, ecology and the protection of our environment; special time was given for understanding the importance and life cycles of sea turtles. These courses culminated in a field trip to Carate for a night of work with the sea turtle research team to count nesting females, collect fresh nests, and release baby turtles. A community workshop was held at Perla de la Osa, thanks to ASTO (Asociación Salvemos Las Tortugas de Osa), that drew biologists from around the country for lectures, videos and activities related to the status of Costa Rican Sea Turtles. Another smaller workshop at the Escuela de Río Oro was held for local community members on whom our work has a direct effect. We have been distributing informational brochures, posters, stickers and pens throughout the Osa and Costa Rica, featuring our cartoon mascot, Uga La Tortuga; you may have seen some around Puerto Jiménez.

We also recently purchased a small piece of beachfront property, in Carate, and will start construction of a field station in order to establish our project on a permanent basis as well as create a home for future studies in the area. We will continue monitoring efforts again starting in May 2003 with beach patrols and the construction of a new protective hatchery.

NSTSTF and SITM had a stellar first year of our sea turtle conservation and environmental education program and will strive to complete our ultimate goal of eliminating non-native threats to our sea turtle nesting habitat in Carate and Río Oro. We need help for the construction of the new biological field station and the running and equipment costs for the conservation and education project. Any and all donations and involvement are greatly encouraged; please help us continue working on this eco-endeavor. Please check out the NSTSTF website, www.savetheseaturtle.org, and the new SITM website, www.crseaturtles.org, for more information. We would like to thank everyone who helped us this year, from the Osa, throughout Costa Rica, Florida, and the world. Special thanks goes out to my staff: Fabian Andres Sanchez, Jason Murray and Helberth Castro.