The endangered sea turtle sustained two large gashes, likely from harpoons used to catch it, along with injuries caused by cords used to tie it up. The turtle is undergoing treatment at the Jaguar Rescue Center in Puerto Viejo.
Hundreds of protesters gathered Thursday in front of a court complex in the Costa Rican capital to express outrage over a verdict earlier this week that acquitted seven defendants of the 2013 murder of sea turtle conservationist Jairo Mora, who has quickly become an environmental martyr in this small Central American country known for its eco-tourism.
LIMÓN – Attorneys presented their opening arguments to a packed Limón courtroom on Monday in the murder trial against seven defendants accused of killing 26-year-old Costa Rican sea turtle conservationist Jairo Mora and kidnapping four foreign volunteers last year.
Costa Rica's National Police have seized what is likely the biggest illegal stash of poached sea turtle eggs this year, just outside of Nicoya, Guanacaste.
PLAYA OSTIONAL, Guanacaste – By 7 p.m., it is already impossibly dark to read the signs on buildings. Every 100 meters or so, a singular yellow street lamp illuminates a small, dim area of the dirt road. The road is bumpy and it is dangerously difficult to see the dips and holes from dried tire marks in the mud.
PLAYA OSTIONAL, Guanacaste – Annual rainfall has decreased by 52 percent this year in the Guanacaste region, according to the National Meteorological Institute, affecting the hatching rates of turtles in Ostional, a mass nesting site on Costa Rica's Pacific coast for the olive ridley species.
Every year, from late February through July, leatherback sea turtles haul themselves onto Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast to lay their eggs, and every year, egg poachers are there to greet them.
