Senior Volunteer Helps the Leatherback Sea Turtle
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Ed Note: Senior volunteer Warren Stortroen shares his Earthwatch experience as a volunteer abroad in Costa Rica working to protect endangered the leatherback sea turtle.
By Warren Stortroen
The full moon was low in the west as we finished the last leg of our beach patrol and sat down in the sand to wait for our ride back to our quarters. Just after we sat down I spotted a large dark shape in the surf, right in the path of the moonbeam! It was another huge leatherback sea turtle coming ashore to make a nest and lay her eggs, so our long night wasn't over! We waited for her to reach the upper berm, prepare a body pit with her front flippers and start digging a nest with the rear flippers. We then approached her to do our research.
This expedition was COSTA RICAN SEA TURTLES in 1998 on Playa Grande near Tamarindo on the Pacific coast. Teams of two or three volunteers and staff patrolled long stretches of beach after dinner, from about 8:00PM to 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. Then another team would continue the patrol until dawn for any late turtles. Between hikes we would lie in the sand and admire the bright constellations overhead - at times we could see both the North Star and the Southern Cross! When relieved we returned to our bunk beds and floor fans for as much sleep as possible before 11:00AM brunch at Kike's, a local restaurant. In the afternoons we could relax, swim or snorkel, and two excursions were planned.
The leatherback sea turtle is a massive animal weighing several hundred pounds, with extremely powerful front flippers that she uses to hitch her way up the beach and to dig her body pit. Then, the muscular rear flippers are cupped to delicately remove the sand for her two foot deep nest. Once she starts on the nest she is in a trance so we were able to prepare to count the number of eggs laid, ID her from injected PIT tags, measure her carapace and mark down the nest location. The volunteer counting the eggs lies in the sand behind the turtle and lifts the protective rear flipper in order to do the count, and to give any watching tourists a view of the process!
In this case the research tasks were easy because there were no tourists around. Earlier in the night groups of up to 15 are allowed on the beach with a guide (who probably was once an egg poacher!). They surround the turtle while the guide explains what is going on. Most of the guides were cooperative, but a few made it difficult to do our research.
All sea turtles are endangered, but the Pacific coast leatherbacks are in especially dire straits because of egg poaching, beach development and long-line fishing practices. Frank Paladino, Principal Investigator, and his colleagues, through this project, have stopped egg poaching and slowed development by getting the beaches declared a National Park, but the future of the turtles is still precarious!
Later that year I volunteered for SAVING THE LEATHERBACKS, at Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge on St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. The research was similar, but highlighted by the largest leatherback I've ever seen - about seven feet long and estimated at 1200 pounds!! She was a dreaded "dawn" turtle, so kept us up a couple of extra hours, but we didn't mind since she was such a magnificent animal! And, since flash was prohibited on the beaches at night, this gave us an opportunity for great photos!
In 2006, Earthwatch sent out a plea to former volunteers that the Costa Rican expedition was very short-handed for December, so I signed up for another trip to Playa Grande. I was the only senior volunteer on the team, but there were several young, energetic staff biologists, so we were able to cover the essential research. We stayed in much improved accommodations in the new research station near the beach - with air-conditioning and a swimming pool! This project is still active with teams in 2009 and 2010, so anyone interested should take the opportunity to work with this wonderful endangered animal!
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