Leatherbacks
At Las Baulas National
Park and for 14 years,
French, U.S., and Costa
Rican scientists have
been studying the
migration of leatherback
turtles, marine reptiles
whose numbers are
declining world-wide, to
the point that they have
disappeared completely
from many important
nesting areas.
They have found out that
after nesting in the
Park’s area, every three
to four years, they make
a journey of some 3,500
kilometers (around 2,187
miles) that takes them
to the Galapagos Islands
and on to the waters off
South America.
This takes them around
500 days and a similar
time to return to their
nesting site in the
Costa Rica northwestern
Pacific, one of the few
main ones remaining in
the planet.
The research is aimed at
bringing the
leatherbacks from the
brink of extinction,
since 90 percent of
their population has
disappeared in the last
20 years. |
