This past weekend, we ventured west to Playa Hermosa to stay at a turtle refuge and enjoy the sun.  Playa Hermosa is about a 2.5 hour drive away from the city and is located just south of Jaco and the turtle refuge is about 15 addition minutes south. 

The road to the turtle refuge is a pot-hole stricken dirt road along the beaches edge lined with palm trees and birds of paradise.  After what felt like a roller-coaster we had arrived at our final destination.  There are several buildings for the employees to live in and for the volunteers to stay.  This turtle refuge is heavily based on volunteer programs, such as i-to-i and school projects.  The main purpose of this location is to find and ensure that the turtle eggs laid on the beach are not harmed by people, animals, wasps, and other predators.  At night the facility is responsible for roughly 6 miles of beach.  The volunteers comb the beach at night to spot freshly laid egg nests or turtles in the action.  The nests are then measured and many observations are made. Once the turtle is done and back on its way to the sea, it is now time to collect the eggs.  They are then taken back to the facility, buried in a similarly built hole (pictured on the bottom) and protected with nets and wires.  Then they play the waiting game.  Once they are hatched the little turtles are contained in the wire barriers and taken to sea (pictured on the top) by a volunteer.  It is imperative to take all these steps as people and animals are the turtle largest predators. 

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Filed under: Costa Rican Wildlife on August 13th, 2007