Osa Peninsula has become famous in the last decade as the host of 2.5% of the world’s biodiversity, however, this accounts mostly for the species on continental land, leaving yet its great marine richness, almost unnoticeable.
Tortugas Preciosas de Osa is a conservation initiative that was created to protect the species of sea turtles that occur in Preciosa Beach in the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. On the other hand, our study sites have been places known and visited historically by locals being fishing and vacation sites, however, information about the species and abundance of sea turtles in the area was not available.
This initiative started in 2019 by a group of naturalists and conservationists who noticed the high presence of sea turtles nesting at Playa Preciosa with the great support of NGO Amazon Conservation Team.
While several sea turtle projects operate on nearby beaches in the area, until this year almost nothing was known about the populations nesting each year on this particular beach. Because of the beach’s close proximity to the nearby town, the site was under great pressure from egg poaching and nest predation by wild and feral animals, making conservation actions vital to this important ecosystem and breathtaking landscape.
In early 2019 by conducting a rapid assessment we discovered at least three species of sea turtles using Playa Preciosa as a nesting site, including the critically endangered Hawksbill Turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata), Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas), also threatened, Olive Ridley Sea Turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea). Since then, we have focused our effort on the conservation of these wonderful creatures engaging local people, educational institutions and private enterprises.
During the first year of operation, our team was able to release more than 21,000 baby sea turtles of these three species from protected wild nests and relocated nests at our own hatchery, to decrease egg poaching by more than 60% and to relocate and protect more than 260 in-situ nests that successfully hatched. On our second year we are reaching not only greater numbers than the first year, but Playa Preciosa has been positioned as one of the two more important sites for the conservation of Hawksbill nesting in the pacific coast of Costa Rica, again, information not available until now.
In the early stages of our research, we received great news regarding the dispersal and movements of nesting Hawksbills from Osa, as two females were spotted and recorded in Coiba Island in the Pacific Ocean off Panamá, about 200 kilometers from the Osa Peninsula. These individuals were tagged in 2016 in nesting sites of Osa and found in one of the places with the highest density of Hawksbill turtles in the world, recognized by WWF as the Hawksbill world capital.
As any marine species that migrates seasonally and have such great dispersal movements, it is crucial to count on this information to increase the ecological knowledge of the species but also to count on information that can be used to take conservation actions through the protection of areas that are essential for these species. Sea turtles are known to travel long distances to fulfill their ecological needs such as mating and nesting, sometimes accounting for thousands of kilometers, nevertheless, nothing is still known about dispersal and movement of Hawksbill turtles from the Southern Pacific of Costa Rica, thus, this opportunity brings hope to fill the gaps of information regarding this important topic in the ecology of the species, specially to count on the information of the places where newborns go spend their first years of growth after hatching in the beaches of the Osa Peninsula.
In conjunction with researchers, initiatives and institutions from Panama, Tortugas Preciosas is starting in 2021 the first binational Hawksbill research to increase the knowledge of crucial information of the species by tagging adult individuals with GPS transmitters to unveil the routes and places that they visit in their normal movements when leaving the beaches of Osa. This unique initiative will produce new resources for a better and more effective conservation plan that might help the great conservation efforts already taken place, for the most endangered species of sea turtle in the world.
In addition to the use of cutting-edge technology to generate ecological information on the ocean, our initiative encompasses a very robust biological monitoring of three species that nest in our study sites, however, actions towards the improvement of the nesting sites is always a must. Beach cleaning campaigns have taken place regularly since we started our conservation efforts to account for better conditions not only for the nesting adults but also for the hatchlings in order to move safer to the ocean when they are ready to do so. Nevertheless, much is still missing for the improving of the sites, especially due to the effects of productive activities that have taken place in the vicinities of the nesting sites. Most of the areas surrounding the nesting beaches are areas used still and historically for livestock and farming and thus, land use has changed dramatically, changing the natural vegetation for grasslands used in livestock production. As a result, we count on areas without natural vegetation on the edges of the nesting sites.
The presence of vegetation has been proven to be a crucial element for the preference of sea turtles to nest, especially for Hawksbill and Green turtles. For this reason, our initiative will start in 2021 with a great reforestation program using native species of trees to cover all degraded spots along our study sites and important nesting sites for sea turtles in order to increase the possible areas that adult females might choose to nest. Our proposal will plant more than a thousand trees covering more than 14 kilometers of beach line that will sustain in a close future with potential good quality areas for sea turtle nesting.
Along with researchers, naturalists, volunteers and donors, local people have become crucial in the development and establishment of this conservation program. Our staff is not only Costa Rican but our Research Field Assistants are young locals who, involved also in ecotourism, now are responsible for the recording of ecological data of the species, at the same time performing anti-poaching strategies leading other locals, students and volunteers, becoming a model and example to follow. We hope that they can empower young generations to be interested in taking their place in the diverse conservation efforts for ecosystems and keystone species in their own communities.
Local eco-touristic enterprises have also started to commit to take their social responsibility to develop conservation initiatives with us, at the same time that this serves as an environmental education platform for locals, national and international visitors.
Even though our initiative account for only two years working so far, we have achieved great conservation progress with the help of local communities, academia and organizations. It is our desire that this will continue growing giving the opportunity to locals to learn and to know about the treasures that they host in the area, and at the same time that this information transcends into the scientific, education and divulgation community, not only to create awareness about the importance for their conservation but to the development of actions that allow us to preserve these magnificent species, their ecological roles in our seas and ourselves.
