Saving An Ancient Race: Costa Rica Sea Turtles

As America is mesmerized, and outraged, by the events in the Gulf of Mexico, many are learning about endangered sea turtles for the first time. However, most people know virtually nothing about these amazing animals.

Sea turtles began roaming the world's oceans about 100 million years ago. Their ancient ancestors were land animals who went to the Seven Seas before there were Seven Seas. Along with crocodiles, these are the most ancient of reptiles.

Imagine mighty Mount Everest, the world's tallest mountain in the mighty Himalayas. Sea turtles were swimming the oceans for some 35,000,000 generations before the Himalayas appeared on earth.

These beings roam all the seas of the world except the frozen Antarctic and Arctic. Once, the sheer numbers of these marine reptiles were so great that mariners who were lost in the fog, sometimes found land by listening for the sounds of sea turtles paddling towards nesting grounds.

However, those numbers are no more. Today, man's indiscriminate development along every coast and wanton plundering of their nests have put them at risk. For many years, millions were slaughtered in South America to makestylish but expensive shoes for Europeans. When "I Love Lucy" began airing, there were still so many nesting turtles in Mexico that a billion eggs a year were being laid. Within four decades, so many turtles were killed that only two turtles came ashore one nesting season. And, that slaughter was taking place across the planet.

But, more and more governments and conservationists are working to restore at least some turtle populations. Additionally, in many ways at the forefront of this battle for survival is Costa Rica and Costa Rica ecotourism.

Conservation groups and researchers have begun tagging pelagic turtles like the green sea turtle in remote places like Costa Rica's Cocos Island. Some turtles are fitted with satellite transmitters while others bear flipper tags in an effort to track their movements and we now know that some species roam across thousands and thousands of miles of oceans, from tropical waters to the deep waters off Newfoundland, Canada.

Cocos Island is one of Costa Rica's Seven Wonders, an uninhabited island halfway to the Galapagos. It's also under consideration as one of the World's Seven Natural Wonders and for a lucky few, a Costa Rica vacation Cocos diving experience of a lifetime . But, it's way out in the Pacific. Marine researchers, scientists, and conservation volunteers spent some 30 hours sailing to the island in their quest for more knowledge about these ancient marine animals.
Consider what they do as a kind of working Costa Rica vacation that maybe will contribute to preserving these marvelous animals now sadly endangered in much of their range.

But, truth be told, long before most Americans became distraught at television images of oil covered sea turtles gasping for life, Costa Rica was taking steps to preserve these beings. Long before it was fashionable in Central America, Costa Rica set aside magnificent Tortuguero National Park, just north of where Columbus came ashore and named the country "Rich Coast" (Costa Rica), as the world's largest green sea turtle preserve. Today, thousands of people include Tortuguero in their Costa Rica vacations, so many in fact, that the once impoverished residents along that part of the Caribbean Coast sometimes refer to these animals as the "turtle that laid the golden egg."

But, of course, one day, after the oil has stopped gushing in the Gulf, Americans and most of the rest of the world will forget all about the most ancient mariners and go on their way, thinking about what movie to see, what restaurant to eat in, or what present they want for Christmas. Fortunately, there are a few people in tropical places like Costa Rica who will still work to preserve these great animals.

Jacque Yves Cousteau remarked that: "If we go on the way we have, the fault is our greed and if we are not willing to change, we will disappear from the face of the globe, to be replaced by the insect."

We cannot undo the past but the people who tag sea turtles have faith that the future for sea turtles is yet to be inscribed.

And, maybe, just maybe, our Costa Rica vacations to Cocos Island or Tortuguero National Park will contribute a bit, too.