Our Turtle Conservation Project commenced with a briefing at the local headquarters in San Jose. To other people, one from Germany and one from Wales, joined Laurence and I for the week. Once the briefing was over, we were put in a taxi to the bus station. Left to book the bus and head to our project location on the Pacific Coast some 3 hours away. The tickets were easy, finding our bus was not. Laurence took point and discovered where our bus was to arrive and kept lookout for it. After being safely stowed on the bus, we endured the ride with no air conditioning and in our seats no window to open. Partway through the ride Laurence changed seats to gain some much coveted wind and to give me some space so we were no longer touching each other. The bus dropped us off in the middle of nowhere next to a dirt track. Thankfully, one of the park rangers was there to pick us up and drive us to the accommodation and beach.
During our stay we competed a number of tasks related to conservation of the turtles and keeping our accommodation clean and tidy. Our typical day went along these lines – wake up at 5:00 am, walk to the hatchery to see if any turtles have hatched. If they have, then count them and release them into the ocean. We would also have to check the nest for any turtles trapped, dead, or unhatched. We would also build the netting around any new nests that have been put into the hatchery overnight. Breakfast at 7:00 am. Head back to the hatchery at 8:00 am to complete maintenance. This could involve digging out old nests (the sand needs to be changed), bring sacks of sand up from the beach and filling old nest holes, weeding, bringing sack loads of sand un to help build next years’ enclosure of the hatchery. At 10:00 am we would head back to the accommodation to shower (cold water only – if the day was hot and you left it long enough the water might get warm). We would then rest until lunch at 12:00 pm. After a nap or a rest, we would commence cleaning of the accommodation at 3:00 pm. This could be sweeping the sand out of the common areas or even raking up the leaves falling from the trees. This would take between 1-2 hours. Dinner would be served between 6:00 pm and 7:00 pm. We would then retire to bed. At some point, usually between 10:00 pm and 11:00 pm we would get up and do the night walk along the beach. This would involve locating turtle nests, collecting eggs, and putting them in the hatchery. This walk would take between 3-4 hours. We would usually be in bed by 2:30 am. If we did the night walk, we did not need to get up until breakfast time but would have the morning work to do with the maintenance work, if we did not do the night walk we would be up at 5:00 am.
During our time at the conservation project, we released approximately 90 baby turtles into the ocean. We also put approximately 700-900 eggs into the hatchery (they will hatch in October). We saw numerous nests that had been eaten by racoons and the park ranger discovered nests that had been dug up by poachers (apparently they sell the eggs for $1USD each).
The project was rewarding but also heart-breaking at seeing how little funding they get and what little they can do about the poachers and predators. They get no funding from the government, only private donations and the volunteer fee that is paid. I think both Laurence and I would happily come back and donate more time to this project.