Baby turtle Find

So we began walking the beach in the evening, hoping to spot baby turtles hatching or making their way to sea. On our third such trip, we'd almost given up and was on our way back to our hotel when Earl spotted a lot of people lined up near the shore about two hundred yards behind us. We ran as fast as our legs and lungs could carry us - it's hard to run on soft beach sand, especially when you have foot problems - and we made a very interesting and important discovery.

Someone in the crowd told us about the turtle game preserve located in the fenced compound about fifty yards up from the shore. He said that if baby turtles hatched that day, the biologist and staff at the preserve would release them between 6 and 6:30 PM. We'd walked up and down and missed seeing the fenced compound because of the construction of new resorts beside it. There were fences everywhere and we didn't think anything special of the little fenced compound.

In the picture above, the biologist (far left) is distributing Olive Ridley baby turtles to the lucky tourists. Everyone has to stand along the line drawn in the sand to prevent accidentally stepping upon the fragile babies. To prevent contamination of foreign substances to the tender hatchlings, we also have to coat our hands with mud from the beach before picking up the babies.

The picture on the right shows the biologist (far right) with his assistant beside him and a lady volunteer (dressed in black). She originally hailed from San Antonio, Texas and now lives in Nuevo Vallarta. She told us that volunteers like herself would sometimes patrol the beach in the wee hours of the morning, looking for turtle nests. They'd then remove the eggs and transport them to the game preserve where they would all be relocated into a new nest. The Mexican government had to do this because of the growth of resorts along the beach. This was essential to the survival of sea turtles, most of whom are endangered.

VIDEO: Olive Ridley baby turtles heading to sea. As you can see, some of them march purposefully and energetically to sea while others are tired. We found out the next day that they'd been trampling over each other all day long, maybe all night long, in the tank at the game preserve. No wonder they were exhausted! When 99% of them had made it out to sea, we were allowed to pick up the remaining ones and release them into the tide.

It was an invigorating and inspiring experience to see the hundreds of baby Olive Ridley turtles heed the call of nature and make their way out to sea in the beautiful soft evening light. We bade them goodbye and God Speed with a mixture of happiness and sadness because it is estimated that only one turtle out of a thousand will survive to grow up into a mature sea turtle that will one day return to nest on this very same beach, recreating this miraculous process all over again.

Vaya Con Dios, chiquititas!