Sea Turtles Nesting in Costa Rica - 360 | National Geographic

Sometime around the last quarter moon, we typically see these large groups of turtles forming offshore and essentially wait for some cue. It's like they're all out there kind of wait for it, wait for it. At some point, hundreds of thousands of turtles start to emerge from the shore. Each individual turtle is slowly gonna crawl up the shore and fight her way to find a spot to lay her nests.

Austan al is really unique because this happens almost every month of the year in very large numbers on this three-kilometer stretch of beach in three or four days. So, it's a lot of turtles and not a lot of space. In us, now we might get 500,000 turtles into seven days, and each turtle lays a hundred eggs. That's how many hatchlings are coming off of this beach, and a lot of those eggs are just getting destroyed by the same turtles themselves.

For a lot of people who love sea turtles, it's very hard to accept the legal take of turtle eggs because they don't understand what that looks like. That's why this was legalized in the first place. That's why the scientists justified it. Because if you're not there and you don't see what the town is like and what the beach looks like, then it's really hard to accept saying, "Okay, take this endangered species' eggs."

I like Austin al because it's a really quiet place and the people are very friendly, and especially we have a lot of turtles. Normally, they have to count the turtles and they can represent one. We have more than 2000 euros. The job from the Association is to support the community. Seventy percent of the money is for the people that are working in the exhibition; the other 30% is to pay the patrols and also pay the geology guys some of the money to protect the community in general by the schools.

I think the community's working pretty well. They really love the trails and that's why they are still doing this. Before this harvest was made legal, it was a free-for-all. Most beaches, if any turtle comes and nests, that nest gets taken. So, in Austin al, the egg harvest program pays for guards to be on the beach all night watching out for illegal poaching. And when it's not legal to be taking eggs, I mean those two now is arguably the safest beach in Guanacaste.

While there's a small percentage of eggs that are taken, and that's what most people are opposed to, if you really look at us, you know, it's also a Wildlife Refuge that has very little funding and resources to protect it. The egg harvest program gives the community ownership of protecting that beach. If you don't protect the community of us Janel and keep an eye out for their needs, then you're not protecting the turtles.