End sale of sea turtle eggs

Costa Rica is home to two of the Eastern Pacific's largest olive ridley sea turtle nesting sites at Nancite Beach and Ostional Beach. Ostional Beach has a government monitored program to patrol the beach and also allow the community to harvest a certain percentage of the sea turtle eggs to be sold at market. However, many people from other areas take advantage of this arrangement by selling turtle eggs from other beaches and claim that they have harvested them at Ostional. The result is that the overall population of olive ridleys had declined. The population of olive ridleys at Nancite has dropped over 90% in the past 30 years. The population at Ostional has remained stable, but there is little or no data available on other beaches to gauge the overall population decline in the area.

Rainsong Wildlife Sanctuary is partnering with PRETOMA Sea Turtle Restoration Program and private landowners to create a program for monitoring and protection key nesting sites for both leatherback turtles and olive ridleys on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. The leatherback is listed as critically endangered and is the top priority for this sea turtle protection program.

Rainsong Wildlife Sanctuary is seeking government and private support to end the sale of sea turtle eggs in Costa Rica to increase the viability of turtle populations on all beaches in the country, particularly those where there is little or no monitoring and enforcement.

Another threat to the leatherback and olive ridley populations in this area is the agricultural development occurring at the Caletas-Ario National Wildlife Refuge (http://www.pretoma.org/sea-turtle-wildlife-refuge-bulldozed-by-farming-company/) carried out by Agropecuaria Caletas S.A.

Detailed information on the olive ridley and leatherbacks can be found at:
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/turtles/oliveridley.htm
http://www.fws.gov/northflorida/seaturtles/turtle%20factsheets/olive-ridley-sea-turtle.htm
http://www.eurocbc.org/seaturtletrackingconservationproject_08mar2006page1886.html