The Release
- PhruityPheebles
- Jul 11, 2021
- 10 min read
Updated: Sep 8, 2023
I felt hard pebbles press against the bottom of my thin flip-flops walking downhill on a rocky path. A cool, soft breeze felt refreshing against my skin. I deeply breathed in the refreshing midnight air enjoying the way it felt before the hot days coming ahead. The rustling in the trees made me jumpy; I constantly wondered whether there was a creature lurking or just the rustling of the wind.
My night shift partner, Josie, also noticed that the two of us with just our flashlights made things especially frightening, with no source of light by the beach. Just two young women walking about in an unfamiliar foreign beach town by ourselves in the dead of night No big. Josie's general positive disposition helped clear the anxiety I had about being outside of our hotel room, where we could barely get away with speaking Spanish.
I was so busy concentrating on pointing my flashlight on the path in front of me, so I knew where to step. That helped keep me distracted from everything that could go wrong. The rocks on the pathway to the beach were so pointy and sharp that in thin flip-flops, it was hard on my feet. Luckily pain helped distract me from everything else around so I could focus on walking and putting my feet in a comfortable place.
Once we cautiously walked down the path that led to the beach, I tossed my flip-flops off and welcomed the soft sand that easily fell under my feet with each step. Eventually we saw the light beams from flashlights of the other group as we drew closer to the shack. The group of 3 other girls from our trip were ready for bed since they had been up all day and had to stay up for their shift from 9 pm to 12 am. But they did have the best sleeping arrangement since midnight is a pretty average time to go to bed for most college students. Josie and I had to go to bed at 9p and sleep only a few hours for our shift at midnight. I don't remember actually falling asleep thought.
The other girls told us that nothing exciting happened during their shift, but warned about keeping our eyes on nest 2E. They said they'd been watching it pretty closely because they could see some small movements under the surface of the sand. They were so sure that we would get that action and release all by ourselves like we were taught earlier in the week. We were on a college service trip in Costa Rica helping local turtle populations at non-for-profit turtle hatcheries. It was 24/7 volunteer work from locals, visitors, vacationers, and even students on their "gap year".
The 9pm-12am group gathered their things and headed back up the rocky path to our hostel. Josie and I quickly grabbed our flashlights eagerly throwing our stuff down. We were ready to begin our first nest check-in of the night. All 25 or so nests were located right near the shack on the beach and there was always someone constantly monitoring all of them. Usually, one of the full-time volunteers that lived in their headquarters about a five-minute walk up the gravelly road. And when they needed a break, they'd have seasonal & part-time help from volunteer groups like us.
Our responsibility was to monitor each turtle's nest to see whether or not they had hatched and were ready to make their way into the ocean. The program we worked with was based in Montezuma, Costa Rica, located in the western peninsula of the country. We had already been in Costa Rica for about a week and even celebrated New Year's Eve as a group on the eastern coast. We explored the country driving through San Jose, the capital, many times to different sights, but we took a ferry to save time on our journey to get to the southern end of the peninsula.
This peninsula was a tourist hotspot but was still less crowded than the capital city. Even Costa Ricans liked to escape the city for the remote nature trails and beaches. This area was primarily large stretches of rainforests, making it home to many different wild animals. Costa Rica is mostly mountains, volcanoes, and rainforest, so there is so much biodiversity. In addition, the country has some of the most progressive green initiatives and policies globally. Bonus fun fact: The country of Costa Rica has no military. I'm serious.
There were several different turtle species on the endangered list that this program protected in remote Montezuma. Some of the more common turtle species they watched over were the Leatherback Sea Turtles and Olive Ridley Sea Turtles. Many of these animals are considered endangered due to human involvement or a large population of predators. Many of these endangered species included turtles who were having a hard time nesting as it is, but fewer baby turtles would make it into the sea each year.
During our first few days at the hatchery we learned all about the Sea Turtle Conservation Program at Montezuma Beach, part of the Association of Volunteers for Service in Protected Areas, aka ASVO. We learned how and why they do what they do. In addition, we learned the procedures and rules for baby turtle releases. You know those videos that used to trend on Facebook of so many baby turtles running to the beach? Yeah, that's what a release is.
Baby turtle releases occur once the majority of eggs in a nest, deeply buried in the sand on the beach, begin hatching. There could be up to 100 eggs in one nest, but that doesn't mean they all hatch. When a female turtle walks up the beach from the ocean, she looks for a place to lay all her eggs and she is in a complete trance until she does so. The entire process takes about a few hours. The volunteers at ASVO will patrol beaches for any new nests and then try to act quickly and collect all of the eggs they find and bring them back to the hatchery.
The hatchery is just a little hut on the beach, a spot for a fenced-in grid system of nests. They dig a new nest within the grid system, place all of the eggs inside, and cover it with sand and by lining the hole with netting to keep other animals and pests out. They can track each nest that hatches on this beach to create population reports. They even track the ones that survive and make it into the water as well as the ones that don't and why.
When a turtle nest hatches, ASVO volunteers will scoop up all the baby turtles trying to climb out of the sand nest and put them in a crate with sand on the bottom, so the babies still think they are climbing in the nest and they find all the turtles willing to climb out. For those that don't, they take them out to make sure they are alive because some may hatch but die. But all the willing hatchlings climbing over each other in the crate will get taken closer to the shore and counted 20 paces out from where the water begins to hit the shoreline. Then volunteers officially begin the release by taking each baby turtle out of the crate, placing it on the sand and facing it towards the ocean.
It is up to the baby turtle to be strong enough and intelligent enough to make its way into the sea on its own and officially start its life. We got to see the full-time ASVO volunteers do this almost every day, sometimes multiple times, since it's more common for them to hatch in the morning or afternoon. The public beach this hatchery was built on could become crowded by any beachgoers nearby who are swimming, walking, or playing in the sand during these times. Whenever the releases would happen during the day, packed crowds of tourists would film and watch.
Only we were allowed to hold the turtles and help perform the releases since we were short-term volunteers. Vacationers would stay to watch so our group was instructed to ask the public to form boundaries perpendicular to the ocean, creating a concentrated path for the turtles to walk in the right direction. This human pathway helped keep predators like giant birds and crabs away. It even helped keep away nefarious human poachers.
The whole reason I've explained the general process is because when Josie and I did our night shift, we had to perform a baby turtle release entirely by ourselves. At midnight. It was up to us, what a dope responsibility. As we began monitoring the nests, we used our red flashlights, which does not hurt baby turtles' eyes as white light would. We checked each nest together since neither of us had done this on our own before and we figured 2 sets of eyes are better than one. We tried to talk through what we were watching out for since the area around the shack was pitch black, with faint lights in the distance. It was tranquil and peaceful compared to earlier that day, with many beachgoers crowded at beach.
When Josie and I arrived at nest 2-E we slowly observed the top, undoing the netting. At the top of the sand nest, we see a black shape slowly moving back and forth.
"Is that a turtle?" I asked even though I knew the answer. A nervous, giddy feeling made it hard to form the words in my voice.
"Yes, oh my god, it is!" Josie nearly screamed as she sprinted back to the shack for the supplies.
It was time. I ran back after her as she grabbed the box of latex gloves. I grabbed the blue crate lined with sand at the bottom, and we both ran back to 2-E. When we re-check the nest, we now see a SWARM of baby turtles trying to swim in the sinking sand nest, their little fins popping up and all over. They were ready to go! Tiny black and grey creatures climb and flop over one another, eager to get out of their netted cage and act on their first instinct.
Josie and I screech; we were told before coming that we might not get to see any turtles during any of our shifts, so we both came with lowered expectations. This time we completely open the netting and glove up. I push the blue crate closer to us while Josie pulls out the notebook and a pen. I ask her to see if she's ready, and she tells me she is, so we begin.
I slowly reach from the top of the nest with my blue latex gloves and grab one turtle. I hold the little guy by the shell as I was instructed to do the day before. The little turtle wiggles around as I lift him by his shell to place him in the blue crate. He is about the size of the palm of my hand, and while he is in mid-air, he looks like he is trying to paddle away. He is anxious to get to the water. It's amazing to see how he knows what he has do next as soon as he hatches. All human babies know how to do once we're born is cry... not as cool.
With each turtle I lift, Josie and I count in unison. I stop grabbing turtles when I no longer see any on the surface pushing their way to the top. The full-time staff will clear out the entire nest for any remaining hatchlings in the morning. As I close back the netting that protects the turtle nest, Josie lifts all 38 babies (a whole 38!) and carries the blue crate down closer to the shore. I put the notebook and pen back in the shack and grabbed our flashlights to run down to meet her.
She counts 20 steps from the ocean and puts the crate down while she waits for me to give her a red flashlight.
"Alright, 38 little turtle babies, let's do this," she says to me, and while still gloved, we start lifting the baby Leatherbacks by their shells and placing them down on the sand in front of the crate. When we finish taking all of them out of the crate, we stand up and see where the first baby is while monitoring each turtle reaching the water.
To say that this was a surreal experience would be an understatement. We were finally getting a chance to physically help endangered turtle species officially start their lives. It was what we came to Costa Rica to do. And despite the uneasy feelings I may have had while walking down to the shack by the turtle hatchery, standing on the beach with that cool soft breeze, watching instinct in these turtles take over, as the stars twinkled in the night sky, made those uneasy feelings dissipate. It made me want to cry, almost, because I knew right in the moment how special this experience was and still is.
Some random dude came up to us while he was taking a walk on the shoreline and asked us what we were doing in Spanish. He ended up speaking a bit of English so we tried our best to explain to him even with our language barrier. Then he thanked us and left. Josie had remembered that it had been thirty minutes since we last checked the rest of the nests and that we needed to make more rounds. So, while she finished watching the last ones reach the water and swim away with the current, I grabbed the blue crate and my red flashlight and went back to check each nest.
About halfway before I finished checking all of them, I noticed another little fin poke up and squirmed from underneath the surface of the sand. I squealed as I gloved up yet again. Since Josie was still waiting for the first nest to get into the water, I started on this nest by myself. There were nearly twenty babies eagerly falling on top of one another, trying to paddle their little fins while still on top of their siblings. I grabbed the notebook and pen, opened the netting at the top, and began to count and record on my own with my gloves, all ready to go.
Our three-hour shift went by so quickly because of all the action we had that we didn't even notice the last group come up to us for their 3 am to 6 am shift. By the time they came, I had finished taking out all of the ready turtles. And now, their shift started with yet another release of the night.
I don't consider myself a "lucky" person. However, releasing two groups of critically endangered baby turtles on the beach under the sparkling moon and stars felt like experiencing the true magic of nature.
SAVE THE TURTLES YOOOOOOO
+++
You made it to the end?!?! Enjoyed my blog ramblings?
Do you…
Struggle finding healthy relationships & friendships?
Struggle with mental health?
Struggle with loneliness?
Bored and need something new to read?
Consider subscribing to my blogsite, A Very Phruity Blog, so you can keep up with all my latest ramblings and things!
Want or need to chat with me about this blog for whatever reason?
Or do you want to feature an ad or sponsorship on this post or elsewhere on my site?
Comments