A Costa Rica scientific fin and satellite tagging project recently got underway at Cocos Island studying its green sea turtle and hawksbill visitors.

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

They are engaged in a kind of scientific working Costa Rica vacation that they anticipate will contribute to preserving these marvelous reptilian mariners now endangered in much of their range.

Cocos Island was described by the famous seaman, Jacque Cousteau, as the most beautiful island he had ever encountered. The small island, just nine square miles in area, lies some 340 miles off the Pacific shoreline of Costa Rica, almost halfway to the Galapagos Islands.

It was not the tropical sunsets and beaches that captured the imagination of Captain Cousteau. 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: vast schools of fish, porpoises, whales and turtles.

Since the days of dinosaurs sea turtles have swum the Seven Seas of the world.

The mighty Tyrannosaurus fed on them more than 200 million years ago as they paddled ashore to lay their eggs on ancient beaches.

These ancient beings roam all the planet’s seas except the frozen Antarctic and Arctic.

Sadly , no more. Today, our indiscriminate development of beaches and plundering of their nests have put them at risk. Millions have been in South America to make expensive shoes for Europeans.

Jacque Yves Cousteau presciently remarked that: “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.” A being visiting from another galaxy might conclude that such a result would be just.

But, conservation organizations have not given up and are working to restore at least some turtle populations. Scientists are now tagging pelagic turtles like the green sea turtle in far-away places like Cocos Island. Some turtles are fitted with flipper tags while others bear satellite transmitters to help track their movements and it has been discovered that some species roam across thousands and thousands of miles of oceans, from tropical waters to the deep waters off Canada.

We cannot undo the past but the men and women who tag sea turtles know that we do not have to be doomed to repeat it.

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

Tags: adventure, adventure travel, beaches, conservation, costa rica, Destinations, family, Fishing, leisure, recreation, Sea turtles, tourism, Vacations

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