My Bridal Report

A Costa Rica research satellite and fin tagging expedition recently got underway at Cocos Island mapping its green sea turtle and hawksbill visitors.

Conservation organizations and marine researchers spent about 30 hours sailing to the island in their search for more knowledge about these ancient marine animals.

Imagine what they do as a kind of working Costa Rica vacation that, hopefully, will contribute to saving these marvelous marine reptiles now sadly endangered in much of their range.

The famous oceanographer, Jacque Yves Cousteau, once described Cocos Island as the most beautiful island he had ever encountered. The small island, less than 10 square miles in area, lies some 340 miles off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, about halfway to the Galapagos Islands.

It was not the tropical sunsets and beaches that enthralled the Captain. Its beauty is just off its shores, under water, in a place that Costa Ricans have voted as one of the Seven Wonders of Costa Rica. It is there that one finds priceless treasure: tremendous numbers of fish, whales, porpoises, and turtles.

Marine turtles have swum the oceans of the world since the age of dinosaurs. Imagine mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex preying on them 200 million years ago when they came ashore to lay their eggs on the beaches.

These ancient creatures swim every sea except the frozen Arctic and Antarctic.

Once, the numbers of green sea turtle, hawksbill, leatherback and other species were so huge that lost sailors sometimes found land by listening for sea turtles paddling towards nesting grounds.

Once, not so long ago the raw numbers of sea turtles were still so great that seamen lost in the fog sometimes found their way by listening for the sounds of sea turtles paddling towards ancient nesting grounds. For eons, marine turtles provided food for every sort of creature. Over eons, billions and billions were eaten by and trillions and trillions of eggs fed birds and animals, including man, for innumerable generations, yet the species’ flourished. However, in just a few short, recent generations, man’s indiscriminate coastline development and wanton destruction of these animals and their eggs have put them at risk. Whole populations were killed off in South America to make stylish Italian combs, and expensive shoes.

Jacque Yves Cousteau once presciently said: “If we go on the way we have, the fault is our greed and if we are not willing to change, we will disappear from the face of the globe, to be replaced by the insect.”

However, more and more governments and conservation organizations are trying to restore at least some turtle populations. International treaties relating to sea turtles are now in place, though many countries have yet to implement them. Conservation organizations, scientists, and researchers have begun tagging ocean roaming turtles in far away places like Cocos Island, the Galapagos, Columbia, and other areas. Some animals are fitted with satellite transmitters that track them 24 hours a day while others bear numbered flipper tags. It is all part of an effort to track their travel patterns.

These taggingvolunteers, scientists, and researchers have confidence that sea turtles can be around another 200 million years but only if men pay more attention to protecting them than exploiting them.

The author , Victor Krumm, lives in tropical Costa Rica. Follow his lovely site Costa Rica Vacations and for info about great beaches check out Costa Rica Beaches