An arribada is a turtle nesting phenomenon where thousands of turtles come up onto the beach and nest usually for about 3 nights, but since there are so many turtles they will sometimes come up in the day as well. Arribada's only happen on a select few beaches in Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and India which is why this was a special thing to be able to witness. We learned that there is a new protocol this year when counting turtles during an arribada; the turtle is only counted when you see her laying her eggs. When thousands of turtles are coming up a night it is hard to get all their measurements and tag all of them. Also, in Corozalito they don't have a hatchery so they eggs are left on the beach and the coordinator and volunteers will go back and check on the nests and do exhumations on ones that they can find on the beach.
It was a fun time getting to see the turtles nesting in the day time and as always seeing our friends from other project sits.
Thanks for posting the new turtle pictures, KK. If the eggs are left on the beach, don't the poachers come and get them?
ReplyDeleteNests getting poached was a concern. But with over 4,000 nesting activities we knew they wouldn't all be poached. Also Pretoma has been in Corozalito for longer so their poaching activity is not as active as ours.
DeleteIsn't it also that eggs are only desirable to poachers for a few hours after they are laid?
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