Leatherback Turtles protected in Costa Rica

This is the third year that Blanco, an Argentine graduate student at Dexler University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has spent the November to March leatherback nesting season at Playa Grande. She and her colleagues cataloged up to 80 females and about 400 nests this season.

That number is up from 58 turtles that came ashore during the 2006-to-2007 season, but fewer than the 108 that were seen in the 2005-to-2006 season. Leatherbacks do not nest every year, so the reptiles’ cycle of nesting populations repeat about every three years.

The overall number of turtles nesting at Playa Grande, however, is down dramatically from the 1980s, experts say.

“There used to be more than a thousand turtles on the beach every night, but now we see at most four to five turtles [a] night,” Blanco said.

Twenty years ago, the poaching of turtle eggs—considered a delicacy in much of Central America—was so rampant that every egg was taken during Playa Grande’s nesting season.

“We’re now seeing the results of that poaching 20 years ago,” Blanco said.

Poaching was eliminated after Playa Grande became part of the Las Baulas National Park in 1991. Since then, the beach has been under strict surveillance by park officials and nonprofit groups.

“This national park fulfills an important function to protect one of the species—the leatherback turtle—that is in critical danger of extinction,” said Rotney Piedra, the park’s director.

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