Marine Turtle Satellite Tagging At Cocos Island, Costa Rica
View PDF | Print View
by: VictorKrumm | Total views: 136 | Word Count: 430
A Costa Rica scientific satellite tagging project recently got underway at Cocos Island involving its green sea turtle and hawksbill visitors.
Conservation organizations and marine researchers spent some 30 hours going to the island in their search for more knowledge about these ancient marine animals.
They are engaged in a kind of scientific working vacation in Costa Rica that they anticipate will contribute to preserving these incredible animals 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 coast of Costa Rica, almost halfway to the Galapagos Islands.
It was not the pretty palm trees or beaches that captured the imagination of the Captain. Its beauty lies off its shores, under water, in a place that Costa Ricans have voted one of the Seven Wonders of Cost Rica. It is there that one finds incomparable treasure: tremendous schools of fish, porpoises and whales and turtles.
Marine turtles have roamed the oceans of the world since the age of dinosaurs. Imagine mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex preying on them 200 million years ago when they landed ashore to lay their eggs on the beaches.
These creatures are found in all the oceans of the world except the frozen Antarctic and Arctic.
These ancient mariner roam all the seas on the globe except the frozen Antarctic and Arctic.
Unfortunately , no more. Today, our indiscriminate beach development and plundering of their nests have put them at risk. Millions have been in South America to make expensive Italian shoes.
Jacque Yves Cousteau once presciently predicted: "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."
However, more and more governments and conservation organizations are working to turn around the decline turtle populations. International treaties relating to sea turtles are now in place, though many countries allow disregard of them. Conservation organizations, scientists, and researchers have begun tagging ocean roaming turtles in far away places like Cocos Island, the Galapagos, Columbia, and other areas. Some animals are fitted with satellite transmitters that track them 24 hours a day while others bear numbered flipper tags. It is all part of an effort to track their travel patterns.
We cannot undo the past but the scientists, researchers, and volunteers who are tagging sea turtles know that the future is not yet written.
About the Author
The author , Victor Krumm, lives in tropical Costa Rica. Follow his lovely site Costa Rica Vacations and for info about great beaches check out Costa Rica Beaches
Rating: Not yet rated
Login to vote
