If you’ve never seen it, the amazing phenomenon of massive arrivals of hundreds of thousands of sea turtles coming ashore all at once to lay their eggs on Costa Rica’s beaches is one of the world’s most spectacular nature events.
They arrive literally in waves, slowly hauling their heavy bodies out of the ocean and up the beach. They wait for the high tide at night, using the high surf to propel them farther up the sand, and the protection of darkness against predators to dig their nests and l
turtles (9)
Over the past three decades, the world’s population of sea turtles has declined drastically. The world they have occupied since the time of dinosaurs has become a very dangerous place. Nearly all seven sea turtle species on the planet have been classified as endangered or facing extinction.
Why is this important? Sea turtles are significant to our oceans’ ecosystems. They maintain marine habitats, help cycle nutrients, and are part of a balanced food web. As turtles disappear, it affects the heal
The TAMAR Sea Turtle Project was founded in the 1980s, although it all began in the 70s when some students who loved oceanography documented the mistreatment of sea turtles on Brazilian beaches by some people, and it has grown since to form the large organization it represents today.
Praia do Forte, in Bahia, is the national headquarters of the project. Around 30 kilometers of the beach are monitored, also ensuring the protection of the young of four species of sea turtles. This is the center th
Article by Shannon Farley
In the easy-going surf and yoga town of Playa Guiones, Costa Rica, there is a very strange smell in the air this time of year.
Besides the fresh scent of the ocean, from January to April, it smells like a giant stack of maple syrup covered pancakes. What is that gingerbread cookie smell pervading everywhere?
It's molasses – all over the streets.
No, the residents of this little tourist town in the Nosara region of Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula don’t have such a sweet tooth
Thousands of visitors come to Costa Rica each year with the hope of witnessing the extraordinary phenomenon of seeing sea turtles nest and lay their eggs. These ancient reptiles have been swimming Earth’s waters for at least 150 million years, mysteriously returning to the same beach where they were born.
Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast beaches receive mass arrivals of female turtles by the tens of thousands, and the Costa Rica Caribbean beaches have crucial world nesting sites. Of the seven species
Celebrate the sea turtles of Costa Rica every November at the Matapalo Sea Turtle Festival.
The annual sea turtle festival on Nov. 15 and 16 at Matapalo Beach, halfway between Manuel Antonio National Park and Dominical on Costa Rica’s Central Pacific Coast, celebrates the Matapalo Sea Turtle Conservation Project and hatching of baby sea turtles. This year’s festival celebrates the project’s 25th anniversary.
Matapalo Beach is a main nesting area for three species of sea turtles in Costa Rica. Ev
They live in the sea, are on the World Wildlife Fund’s “Endangered Species List”, and frequent the waters around Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast Tortuguero National Park. Their lives, though on similar paths, are a bit conflicted.
I’m talking about sea turtles and manatees. One draws crowds of up to 50,000 tourists each year; the other lives a hidden life and was thought until recently to be extinct.
Tortuguero is one of Costa Rica's most popular ecotourism destinations – a microcosm of rainforest, f
Personally, I prefer staying in small boutique hotels. Large chain hotels have their function, though I rather like when the receptionist remembers my name and is personable enough to care how I am and how my stay is going. I like waiters who remember I favor water without ice and that my mid-afternoon coffee is an absolute must … with a healthy shot of warm milk, if you please. I am deeply grateful to attentive staff who think up and suggest new things to do or places to visit, without being as
Close to our Spanish school in Samara, turtles are making their way to lay their eggs in Ostional, Costa Rica, a phenomenon known in Spanish as "arribada" or a mass emergence from the ocean. Thousands of "tortugas lora," or olive ridley turtles nest here each year in the refuge that was created in 1984. Prior to 1984, there were no laws prohibiting or regulating the removal of turtle eggs from the beach.
Turtles nest in Ostional year round, but during rainy season, a few hundred turtles will a
