Sea Turtles
Turtles already co-occurred with the dinosaurs. The distant ancestors of all turtles today lived in water and only had a shell on their bellies. The later ancestors that crawled up on land, over a very long time, also acquired a shell on their backs and thus the unique, double armor was created. Turtles - both on land and in the sea - are true survivors. Unbreakable. Only, unfortunately, they are no match for wildlife crime.
Sprint to the water. Very many baby sea turtles never reach adulthood. As soon as they stick their heads out of the egg, danger threatens from all sides. They have to run as fast as possible from the beach, where they crawl out of the egg, to the ocean. This is quite a journey when you have just been born, but it is even more difficult when there are thousands of hungry enemies lurking around. Who do fancy a tasty turtle snack!
Endangered. Sea turtles lay an awful lot of eggs in their lifetime. Therefore, it is not a problem that not all babies reach adulthood. Nature takes good care of that! It becomes a different story when humans get involved. Not only are the eggs of sea turtles sought after, you can also find their meat and shells on the black market. Sea turtles lay a huge number of eggs, and they all hatch on a beach around the same time, too. This is an anti-predator strategy: even though many newborn turtles are eaten by birds, crabs, sharks and other animals, there are always a few that survive. Out of every thousand eggs, about one sea turtle becomes an adult.
As big as a tabletop. For the filming of "Freek in Latin America," I searched Costa Rica for green sea turtles and leatherback turtles. These come to the beach several times per nesting season to lay about a hundred eggs at a time. Every evening, after sunset, we would go out onto the beach hoping to come across a turtle there that was just laying eggs. And we succeeded! Amazing to watch such a huge leatherback turtle - these animals are the size of a tabletop and can weigh nearly 1,000 pounds - dig a pit and then go into a kind of trance as she lays her eggs.
Poachers on the beach. I collected those eggs by lying under one of those huge turtles. With my hands in a bag, I collected the eggs and then took them away to a fenced-off piece of beach that was guarded 24 hours a day. Indeed, on the unguarded stretch of beach, besides researchers and volunteers like us, poachers were also walking around.
First come first... And poachers we also encountered. In some places along the Costa Rican coast and during certain periods, it is legal to dig up sea turtle eggs, but unfortunately it is still also done illegally on a large scale, since the 1986 ban. And in places where there are poachers - regularly armed - it is of course dangerous for volunteers and others working to protect the nests. Still, it remains incredibly frustrating when you arrive late to a nest and see a group of poachers standing around it. All you can do then is watch helplessly. That's why the sea turtles need all the help they can get. Because that would be something else: that they survive the dinosaurs but not man! That is impossible!
