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Baby turtle hatchlings
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The leatherback
sea turtle, which can grow as long as 9 feet (2.7 meters) and 6 feet wide
(1.8 meters), has inhabited this world for over 100 million years. It has
outlasted the dinosaurs, the ice age and a multitude of other catastrophes.
But will it be able to survive man?
Scientists
estimate there are less than 5,000 nesting females, down from 91,000 in 1980,
and that only 1 in 1,000 leatherback hatchlings survive to adult-hood.
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The habitat of the leatherback spans the globe from the North Atlantic near
the Arctic Circle to the South Pacific around New Zealand. Due to this vastness,
scientists never believed that the population was in danger of extinction.
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Education
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Literature & eBooks
Children's Classic Literature by Twain, Bronte, Fitzgerald, Hawthorne, Thoreau and more.
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Leatherback Sea Turtles in Peril
Leatherbacks
will migrate hundreds of miles every year. The females have the potential
of nesting up to ten times in one nesting season and returning every 3-4
years for 30 years. However, no leatherback on the Pacific coast of Costa
Rica lives long enough to accomplish this feat. Most are only capable of
nesting once because they are killed at sea.
| Endangered Animals of Costa Rica
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"Over the last 22 years their numbers have declined in excess of 95 percent,"
said Larry Crowder, a marine scientist at Duke University in Durham, North
Carolina. The main cause of death is due to gill-nets and longline swordfish
and tuna fisheries.
Longline fishing is a technique used by commercial fishing vessels which
lay out vertically hung baited hooks over a distance of 40-50 miles (64-97
kilometers). Calculating the number of longline fishermen, Crowder estimates
that 100,000 miles of the equivalent of barbed wire fencing is hung in the
ocean each night.
The leatherback, being an air breathing carnivore, goes for the baited hooks,
becomes entangled and cannot surface for air, therefore drowning. §
| Playa Grande
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| Las Baulas National Marine Park
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A group of scientists who have been monitoring Playa Grande in Las Baulas
National Park, near Tamarindo since 1988, have tried to halt the demise of
this species.
They have hired rangers to protect the beach from poachers
Using grants, donations and tourist dollars, the scientists run a hatchery
where they hope to improve the survival rate to 1 in 100. §
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