Costa Rica Egg Hoax
Note from Wilma Katz, CWC Board of
Directors:
Many of us continue to receive from friends the series of photos
showing people collecting sea turtle eggs and the accompanying
questions and expressions of alarm.
Leading sea turtle scientist Dr. Karen Eckert recently provided a
sample letter with the facts behind the legal and organized egg
harvest in Ostional, Costa Rica. Please feel free to use her words
to counter the alarm, but please also acknowledge the source.
Dr. Eckert is the Executive Director of the Wider Caribbean Sea
Turtle Conservation Network or WIDECAST, an organization which
promotes and facilitates information sharing and communication in
general - the networking fundamental to furthering sea turtle
conservation and, in particular, regional sea turtle conservation.
The organization's website is outstanding:
www.widecast.org.
By the way, WIDECAST was one of the partner organizations for my
efforts years ago on the Caribbean coast of Guatemala.
Wilma
(November 2010)
___________________________________________
I
don't know how these photos got started, but the originator would
have been wise to have done his/her homework first.
The photos depict a formal co-management model between the
University of Costa Rica, a community organization called ADIO, and
the Ministry of Natural Resources (MINAET) in Costa Rica.
It's a legal harvest of surplus eggs from the Olive Ridley
arribada colony at Playa Ostional on the Pacific coast – an arribada
is a mass nesting of sea turtles, characteristic of Kemp's and olive
ridley turtles (Lepidochelys kempii, and Lepidochelys olivacea).
In such a nesting strategy, the turtles will nest simultaneously
with the result that natural predators may be “overwhelmed” and
sufficient numbers of eggs/hatchlings are produced to maintain the
species." Arribadas can involve many thousands of turtles nesting day
and night for several days.
The downside is that the turtles regularly dig up each
others’ eggs, causing destruction not only to those eggs, but, due
to bacterial decomposition of the broken eggs, gross contamination
of the surrounding sand. As a result, arribada beaches often realize
a very small (1-2%) hatch success. The scenario may seem maladapted,
but in reality the Olive Ridley is the most numerous sea turtle
species in the world, so the strategy clearly reflects a successful
evolutionary strategy.
The egg harvest at Ostional
is a strongly regulated and legal, emphasizing a sustainable harvest
of eggs that are doomed to be destroyed by subsequent arribadas.
The following facts are useful:
1. The program is
regulated under a co-management model between University of Costa
Rica, a community organization called ADIO, and the Costa Rica
Ministry of Natural Resources.
3. The current plan notes that:
a. The current density of nests is 11
nests per square meter (olive ridleys can only sustain about 2
nests per meter without impacting hatchling emergence
success).
b. During the arribadas (which happen more or less monthly),
the females dig up the nests of previous nesting events.
c. Due to the high level of egg breakage, putrefaction rates
are very high and the resulting high levels of fungus and bacteria
contaminate 100% of nests, reducing emergence success to near zero.
Removal of surplus eggs has actually the population because it
increases the hatch success by 5%.
d. Eggs can only be harvested during the first 36 hours of an
arribada.
f. To be declared an “arribada”, more than 80 adult females
must be nesting simultaneously.
4. The egg
harvest program employs 300 local people and the gross income from
the program is about $150,000 USD.
About 15% of the eggs are harvested.
While there are constant concerns about the balance between
maintaining the community’s desire and tradition to harvest and
consume (or sell) the eggs and the need to protect this precious
resource on balance the program is widely viewed as a progressive
example of pragmatic conservation.
Bottom line -- The program is legal, it is well-regulated,
and the population is rising.
Please take the time to learn more about it. For example this spanish online newspaper:
Executive Director
Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network (WIDECAST)
1348 Rusticview Drive
Ballwin, Missouri 63011
Tel: (314) 954-8571
keckert@widecast.org
www.widecast.org
http://www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2010/january/24/costarica-10012406.htm
A v
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbgEGWB2q74
