Sea Turtle Conservation & Environmental Education

Global Giving are generously offering a special Bonus Day on October 17, when they will match 30% of all donations made on that day. Please dig deep on October 17 to maximize the impact of your donation and help the community in Drake Bay to protect their sea turtles.

Around fifty years ago the beaches of Drake Bay would have welcomed four different species of nesting sea turtle: the mighty giant Leatherback, the beautiful Hawksbill, the majestic Pacific Green, and the rugged little Olive Ridley. After fifty years of intensive poaching of sea turtle eggs by the growing community of residents in Drake Bay, only the Olive Ridley survives in any significant numbers; and even though they thrive elsewhere in the East Pacific, the population in Drake Bay has been brought to the brink of extinction. Since the Sea Turtle Conservation Program began patrolling the beaches in 2006, however, egg poaching has been largely halted, offering a last minute chance for the sea turtle populations to recuperate. Will it be enough to save them from extinction in the area? Only time will tell.

After five years of patrolling the beaches of Drake Bay and Ganado, only one Hawksbill and a handful of Pacific Green turtles had been found on the remote Ganado Beach, and nothing except Olive Ridleys in Drake Bay. This all changed in 2011 when an unexpected gift with a mysterious teardrop-shaped shell crawled from the sea onto Drake Beach – a gregarious young Pacific Green turtle called ‘Talhula’. She became an instant celebrity. She was seen 14 times and left seven nests and was met by nearly everyone at the program, and a song about her was even performed by the local kids for the annual Turtle Festival of El Progreso. It was the first time a Pacific Green has been spotted on Drake Beach for at least ten years, and once she had left her final nest we sincerely thought that we would not see another of her kind until she returned to nest in a few years’ time.

Then, one morning in September 2012, the camp awoke to find a grinning patrol team still waiting in the hammocks to tell everyone the news that they had found a new, even bigger, even more beautiful Pacific Green nesting on Drake Beach the night before. This turtle, adopted by the school kids of Room 7, Sturt Street Community School in Adelaide, Australia, and named ‘Ricki’, was to be the celebrity turtle of 2012 – the turtle that everybody wanted to meet. She has already laid two nests, and we expect her to leave up to five more over the next two months J

Which each of Ricki’s eggs that is put into the hatchery to incubate, a more certain future for this species is in the area is nurtured, and it becomes even more important to protect Drake Beach as it re-emerges as a nesting site for the Pacific Green turtle – a much more seriously endangered species than the Olive Ridley. Unfortunately an egg poacher will not make this distinction and will not hesitate to deny these precious lives a chance to survive.

Please dig deep on October 17 to maximize the impact of your donation and help the community to protect their endangered sea turtles! However big or small, your donation will make a difference to the people and turtles of Drake Bay and help them to build a brighter future. Thank you for your kind generosity!

Links:

• www.facebook.com/playadraketortugas