Montezuma - Turtle conservation work

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Life at the conservation project

Our time in Montezuma was spent working at a turtle conservation project run by ASVO (Asosacion de Voluntarios para el Service en Areas Protegidas en Costa Rica - http://www.asvocr.org/english/). ASVO is a non-profit NGO that has been running for 25 years, with a number of different projects working in protected areas in Costa Rica. Montezuma beach is a nesting site for Olive Ridley, Black and Leatherback turtles, with their overlapping seasons running from July through to February.

Arriving late on Monday night, our first exposure to the project consisted of quick introductions to some of the key people and sorting out sleeping arrangements. Accommodation was very basic, with everyone sleeping in bunk beds, and while the staff tried to keep separate male and female rooms, that wasn't always possible as people left and others arrived regularly during the six days we were there. At one point, there weren't even enough bunk beds to go around, so new arrivals were given a mattress on the floor while they waited for something better to become available.

The project was staffed by a mix of permanent Costa Rican ASVO employees and international volunteers, many from Europe, who were staying for anywhere between a few days and a year. Everyone staying at the project ate together, with a permanent member of staff responsible for cooking, but everyone was expected to share the other communal duties including cleaning the living areas and bathrooms and washing pots after meals.

Working at the project

The conservation work at the project was based around the nesting cycle of the turtles. Each night, patrols would walk along the beach looking for turtles coming ashore to lay eggs, or for tracks of turtles that had already nested. If any turtles or nests were found, the eggs were carefully recovered, a new nest dug by hand and the eggs re-laid in a new location. This intervention was intended to keep all the nests in one place, where they could be watched over and protected from insects, predators or people. Volunteers took 3-hour shifts in the hatchery or 'vivero' so that the nests were continuously monitored. This also ensured that after 40-45 days when the nests hatched, someone would be around to try and protect the baby turtles as they made their first dash to the ocean.

My personal highlight was being on hand to recover the eggs from a nesting Olive Ridley turtle during a night patrol. We had just started our first patrol of the evening when our patrol leader spotted tracks from a turtle that had come ashore. We followed the tracks carefully and slowly, until we found the mother turtle who was digging a nest ready to lay her batch of eggs. We backed off slightly and waited until she started laying, then moved back into a position directly behind her. Working by fingertips and using head torches turned to red light so as not to disturb the mother, I enlarged the nest hole and recovered the eggs as quickly as the mother laid them, at one point even catching the eggs directly before they even hit the sand. ASVO are keen to record as much information as possible to enable later study of nesting patterns, so while I worked, our patrol leader recorded data such as the size of the turtle and number of eggs laid and also tagged the turtle. When the mother had finished nesting, she started to fill in the nest, so it seemed that she hadn't even noticed our presence. As she started to head back to the water, I took the eggs to the hatchery, dug a new nest and re-laid 92 eggs, each about the size of a ping-pong ball. It really was an amazing experience to get so close to a nesting turtle and to hold the eggs, and it made each of us feel that our work was really making a difference. I was especially lucky, as for the rest of our time in Montezuma, we didn't see another nesting turtle. Another nest was found and the eggs recovered, but this was done by following the tracks on the beach as the mother had already returned to the sea. There were also some earlier nests that were thought to be close to hatching, but this didn't happen during our time there and so we just missed out on the chance to see the baby turtles emerge from the sand.

It's not just about the turtles

While the majority of our work in Montezuma was based around the turtles, ASVO are also keen to engage with the local communities, and so we took part in other activities which included setting up at the local school in preparation for a Spelling Bee, tidying up the school gardens, clearing up a local park and collecting litter from the beach.

Around Montezuma

Although our days were kept fairly busy with a range of activities, we did manage to schedule some free time for our group to get away and explore the local area. Montezuma is not much more than a village, with a few hostels and shops, some small restaurants and one real bar, but there is enough in the area to occupy visitors for a few days. The beaches are generally clean, although some areas are rocky and the waves can be quite high, so not ideal for swimming. While we were there, there was an algae bloom that the locals referred to as a 'Red Tide', believed to be caused by a fertiliser spill into the Gulf of Nicoya a few days earlier. Although harmless to us, this clouded the water for a few days, and washed up a few dead fish onto the beaches.

Having arranged a free day, we paid $45 to join a boat trip to Turtle Island. While we didn't see any turtles, the trip included snorkelling at two different spots near the island, cooked lunch on the beach with soft drinks, beers and Cuba Libres and a couple of hours on the beach. On the way back, the skipper of the boat diverted to watch a pod of dolphins that were passing by. For anyone not keen on the sea or boats, there is a waterfall within walking distance of the town with a pool of fresh water that is good for swimming. There are also plenty of opportunities to spot wildlife in Montezuma. Howler monkeys and capuchins regularly came to feed in the trees around the ASVO lodge, and other members of the group saw raccoons and coati.

Final thoughts

I came away from my time in Montezuma with a real sense of making a difference, albeit in a small way. The ASVO project has drawn together some really committed and dedicated people, and you can't help but be impressed by their passion for what the project is trying to achieve. Bizarrely, they are encountering resistance from the local government, particularly against their use of the hatchery, although they are fighting hard with the help of the local community to overcome this opposition.

The only slight downside to our time in Montezuma was the relatively low number of turtle sightings. I would definitely go back and spend some time there in the future, and while there is work to do all year round, I would probably aim to be there around late September and October, when the nesting seasons of the three turtle species overlap.

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