It is a sequence of events repeated hundreds of thousands of times over, year after year, on countless numbers of tropical beaches across the globe. Warm, nurturing ocean waters bring ashore an expectant female sea turtle to the exact beach were she herself hatched and undertook the first steps in the continuing struggle for survival. Currently this ancient cycle of life is under great threat, mostly by our own activities. Poaching of turtles and their eggs, coastal development, and reckless fishing practices threaten to disrupt a natural rhythm that has gone on for countless centuries and is now under increasing attack. One of the best ways to begin to understand the plight of the world’s sea turtles is to go to their nesting grounds and watch a female lay her eggs preparing for the arrival of the next generation.

After paying a small admission fee my friend and I were allowed to pass the armed men guarding the entrance to the Refugio Vida Silvestre Playa La Flor. This beachfront refuge located on Nicaragua’s Southern Pacific Coast is where roughly one half of all sea turtles in Nicaragua are hatched and a key breeding ground to the endangered Olive Ridley sea turtle. Between the months of July and January, female Olive Ridleys will travel great distances from their feeding grounds to nest here on this quiet, undeveloped, and heavily patrolled beach.

We arrived at Refugio La Flor half an hour prior to sunset, just in time to make it down to the unspoiled beach and watch the sun retreat for the evening. Seeing the golden shades of a magnificent sunset grow progressively darker as day slowly faded to night was peaceful and relaxing. However, our soon attention became focused on an intriguing small hump that emerged from the ocean moments before the sky went completely black. The early evenings absence of light made it difficult to identify the object as it headed in a straight path toward the high tide line and only once we drew closer could we confirm it as the reason for us coming to this secluded beach. It was an Olive Ridley mother coming ashore to lay her eggs and we were lucky enough to be in position to witness the entire event.

Once she had moved far enough up the beach away from the grasp of any future lunar high tide, the female went right to work. Combining the use of agile front flippers with a large amount of effort and determination she was able to dig out a hole which would soon incubate her eggs for the next three months. Once she had dug the hole to her liking, she then proceeded with the next phase of her nights work and deposited roughly one hundred white, ping-pong ball sized eggs into the freshly dug pit.

It is these eggs that are the reason men with automatic rifles monitor visitors on the lone road into the refuge and patrol the beach throughout every night of the nesting season. Without their protection many turtle nests would fall prey to poachers raiding the beach, destroying and pillaging nests for the equivalent of a few US dollars. With rampant poverty in Nicaragua and a lack of economic opportunity, poaching is seen by local villagers as way of earning money, but due to the tireless patrolling of the guards the eggs at this beach while vulnerable to natural predators are free from short sighted human interference that would cheat the ocean of its diversity and the local population of sustainable eco-tourism revenues.

With tears now flowing from her eyes, the weary turtle began to fulfill her final tasks of the night by covering and disguising her new nest. Her eyes were glassed over as if in a trance, completely oblivious to our presence as she began using her rear flippers in a sweeping motion, gathering sand to fill in the hole and cover the precious eggs. After awhile her pit no longer existed but her work was still incomplete, there remained one final task, one action left to complete, and one peculiar to Ridley Turtles. Mother ridleys characteristically rock from side to side in order to compact the sand over their new nests and disguise it from potential predators. Defying the weight of her shell this proud mother was seemingly levitating off the ground slamming her body into the sand to tightly pack the nest. Finally when she felt the eggs were well protected, she slowly turned around and began to march back into the Pacific waters from where she had come.

In several weeks these eggs would hatch, but the young turtles journey into adulthood would not be an easy one. While they are growing the juveniles are vulnerable to predators and the stresses that plague nearly all sea turtles. At most just a handful of the eggs we had just seen laid would ever produce hatchlings who would survive into maturity and even then their future is still uncertain. By protecting nesting beaches from development and exploitation we can help sea turtles begin to mount a comeback by giving the next generation of turtles an undisturbed beach to return to and lay their eggs as they have been doing under starry, tropical skies for millions of years.
(featured August 2003)