Cocos Island Tagging Expedition In Costa Rica For Sea Turtles

Recently, a Costa Rica based scientific fin and satellite tagging project got underway at Cocos Island to map the migration patterns of sea turtle.

Researchers and conservationists sail Costa Rica open waters for at least 30 hours in their quest of migration habits about these ancient marine animals.

Imagine what they do as a kind of working Costa Rica vacation that maybe will contribute to saving these marvelous animals now sadly endangered in much of their range.

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

It is not likely that it was the tropical beaches and island sunsets that captured the imagination of Captain Cousteau. Its beauty is found nearby, just off its shores, under water. Costa Ricans have chosen it as one of the Seven Wonders of Costa Rica because in these waters one finds priceless treasure: tremendous schools and varieties of fish, porpoises, whales and turtles.

Sea turtles have swum the oceans of the world since the age of dinosaurs. Imagine the mighty Tyrannosaurus feeding on them 200 million years ago when they paddled ashore to lay their eggs on the beaches.

These ancient creatures roam every sea except the frozen Arctic and Antarctic.

These ancient mariner are found in all the planet's seas except the frozen Arctic and Antarctic.

Unfortunately , no more. Today, our unrestrained beach development and plundering of their nests have put them at risk. Millions were slaughtered in South America to make expensive shoes for Europeans.

Jacque Yves Cousteau said 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."

But, world conservation organizations are working to turn around the decline turtle populations. Conservation groups and researchers have begun tagging pelagic turtles like the green sea turtle in remote places like Cocos Island. Some turtles are fitted with flipper tags while others bear satellite transmitters in an effort to track their movements and we now know that some species swim thousands and thousands of miles of oceans, from tropical waters to the deep waters off Newfoundland, Canada.

These taggingscientists, researchers and volunteers have faith that sea turtles can be around another 200 million years but only if men pay more attention to protection than exploitation.