(E.B.W.) Critter Corner
Feature:
Sea Turtles Create Natural Spectacle in Baja
“LOS CABOS,
MEXICO- Far from the bikini-lined beaches & booze-fuelled bars of Cabo San
Lucas, I lie elbow deep on the sand of some remote Mexican dunes waiting for
the sun to near the horizon, a growing nursery of baby turtles squirming beside
me.
It’s September, the hottest &
most humid month of the year on the tip of the Baja Peninsula…
August is the start of
turtle-hatching season on the Baja, & for the next 5 months… tourists won’t
be the only things crawling along the sandy beaches of the Pacific & the Sea of Cortez.
5 species of sea turtle nest on the
peninsula, some crossing the ocean from as far away as Japan to return to their breeding
grounds: Olive Ridley, green, loggerhead, leatherback, & hawksbill turtles.
There are only 7 species of sea
turtles total, & 6 of them are considered endangered, the most endangered
being leatherbacks, the prehistoric behemoths that can weigh more than 450
kilograms…
In the penned nursery, turtle eggs
collected by biologists earlier in the year had been reburied, each in a nest
ringed with netting to keep the hatchlings from making a solo escape.
August is the start of turtle-hatching season on the Baja, & for the next 5 months… tourists won’t be the only things crawling along the sandy beaches of the Pacific & the Sea of Cortez.
…the others in our…group were shown
how to dig down into hatching nests & gently help the turtles into the
fading light of day.
‘When I pulled the first turtle out
of the nest & brushed the sand off its shell, I thought nothing about the
evening would top that. I was wrong. Apparently, my nest was like the
motherlode- over the next 20 to 30 minutes I dug handfuls of turtles out of the
sand.’…
The group, directed by biologists,
then took the turtles from the nursery close to the water line, where they were
put on the sand to make their way- under watch- to the ocean.
‘The waves on that coast are huge,
& as soon as the turtles got wet it was as if some primal instinct kicked
them into overdrive & they started racing toward the ocean, fearless, &
ready for whatever was in front of them,’…
The odds of survival are one in a
thousand for every egg laid, but those odds are improving thanks in part to
conservation efforts that began more than a decade ago with local fishermen…
Sea turtles spend their lives in the
ocean, with the exception of females that come ashore to lay eggs every 2 to 5
years.
Tour companies offering turtle tours
say the industry provides an alternative to fishing, & support
conservation.”
Dene Moore
THE
CANADIAN PRESS
The Montreal Gazette
Nov. 2/2013
Cute Critter Pic
Weekly Chuckle
