The Marine Turtles of Costa Rica
A Green Sea Turtle in shallow, crystal clear water
Some vacationers enjoy the nightlife of loud music and cocktails, but for many visitors on Costa Rica tours, nightlife means crouching in the sand, hoping to observe marine turtles as they lay eggs or to glimpse the hatchlings scrambling to the sea in the darkness of the country’s beaches. In most nesting locations, turtle-watching in Costa Rica is tightly controlled to avoid disturbing the females. It is a waiting game, and the visitors who get to have the experiences during their travel to Costa Rica are truly fortunate.
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The Marine Turtles of Costa Rica
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Once abundant, only seven species of marine turtles remain. Four of these, from the largest to the smallest, travel to Costa Rica to nest every year, the leatherback, the green turtle, the hawksbill and the olive ridley. The turtle species that nest here all do so at night, crawling onto a safe spot on the beach and using their back flippers to dig and cover the hole where they deposit their eggs. The sex of the turtles will be determined after the eggs have been deposited, with warmer sands usually producing females and colder sands, males.
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Most national parks in Costa Rica attract one or more turtle species. Two of these parks represent important turtle nesting sites and are the reason the territory was designated as national park land. Several species come to nest at 77,000-acre Tortuguero National Park on the Caribbean coast, including the infrequently observed loggerhead species. The star attraction at Las Boulas Marine National Park on the northwestern Pacific coast is the leatherback species. Turtles are also found in some of the nation’s other protected areas, including Gandoca-Manzanillo National Refuge on the southern Caribbean coast near the border with Panama and Isla del Cano Biological Refuge off the southern Pacific coast near Corcovado National Park.
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Sea turtles are among Earth’s oldest creatures. Modern day turtles lead a precarious life, only a small percentage making it to old age. They must contend with predators on land and sea, shrinking habitat, thanks to human developments, and avoiding fishing nets at sea, not to mention unpredictable natural disasters such as hurricanes that wipe out nesting sites. The status of sea turtles ranges from vulnerable to critically-endangered, depending on the species. Many governments and non-profit organizations are helping to restore the populations of marine turtles and their habitat around the world, among them the U.S. based Sea Turtle Conservancy and the Earthwatch Institute.
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Established in 2001, the Inter-American Convention for the Protection and Conservation of Sea Turtles (IAC) stands as the world's only far-reaching international agreement to protect these species and their habitat. Though not all have signed the agreement, twenty-eight countries are named in this comprehensive document with stringent provisions. Costa Rica is among the countries that have signed the IAC agreement. To learn more about sea turtles and efforts to protect them before you travel to Costa Rica, go to www.iacseaturtle.org, one of the sources for this article.
