We Must Save Sea Turtles

Sea turtles roam the planet in every ocean except the Arctic. Though it’s only the size of the little state of West Virginia, Costa Rica hosts five of the seven remaining species of marine turtles and has taken the lead in conservation efforts. And you, my fellow traveler, play a vital role.

We’d wait for them to lay their eggs along Mexican beaches and then dig up millions, taking them by pack trains of burros to market. We’d kill them by the millions in Ecuador so that we could sell turtle leather shoes in Italy (and other places), or make combs and trinkets. We relentlessly killed them everywhere on the planet.

Millions of eggs were (and still are) sold in bars to drunken patrons across the world as aphrodisiacs. Vast numbers were accidentally killed by drowning in huge ocean fishing nets or barbed tuna hooks. And, of course, innumerable beaches now sport hotels, resorts, and housing developments.

No more. Sadly, in just a few decades, these animals---which have survived for some 150,000,000 years---have been reduced to a tiny, tiny fraction of their former numbers.

Actually, they've probably been around for a few million years more than that, as evidenced by the discovery off a Scottish Island of a 164,000,000 year old sea turtle fossil, click.