Marine Life Protector Sea Turtles

The project is located on the Nicoya Peninsula, in the Guanacaste Province in the north-west of Costa Rica. The capital San José is about 5 hours away by car. The picturesque seaside resort of Samara is the closest larger town and is about 20 minutes away by car / taxi. Samara is a small, sunny town with dream beaches as far as the eye can see.

The Sea Turtle Conservation project was founded in 1984 and serves to protect the sensitive ecosystem on land and in the sea, in particular the habitat and breeding grounds of sea turtles. It includes an area of over 500 hectares made up of a marine and land reserve. The dreamlike landscape is characterized by mountains, small bays, beautiful beaches, mangrove forests and countless small islands. Local communities support and benefit from this project through sustainability work such as ecotourism, environmental education, beach cleaning and similar efforts.

The reserve is located on the coast where the so-called "arribada" takes place. This is a natural phenomenon and describes the natural synchronized mass nesting of the olive ridged turtle. In the high season, thousands of turtles come to the beaches, making the region the second largest sea turtle breeding site on this planet.

In addition to the olive ridged turtle, there are two other sea turtles species nesting in this region (the leatherback turtle and the green sea turtle). 

In this Sea Turtle protection project you will learn a lot about the habitat and threats of these wonderful animals. 

During their stay volunteers will have different tasks. On one side, there are the exciting night patrols on the beaches to observe rare species of turtles and to monitor their habits and behavior. These inspection rounds are always carried out in teamwork with other volunteers and / or with local project staff. Although in this area sea turtles come to the beach to lay their eggs all year round, the high season is from August to January (olive ridged turtle, leatherback turtle).

On the other side there is the project's research program that is extremely important for longlasting sea turtle preservation. Volunteers and local staff collect data on the population and the success of breeding. In order to protect the eggs of the sea turtles from natural and human predators and illegal theft (turtle eggs are traded as delicacies) and to ensure the growth of the animal population in the Pacific, some of the turtle eggs are collected by the volunteers and kept in incubators until the baby turtles hatch after about 45-60 days. After successful breeding, the hatchlings are then released into their natural habitat again.

Beaches have to be kept clean. So, volunteers are also instructed to helf with beach cleaning and collecting garbage. It is very important that the breeding grounds of the sea turtles are free of garbage. Great importance is attached to the recycling of the various materials such as plastic, glass and aluminum.

We would like to point out that mother nature is unpredictable and we cannot give any guarantee about the number of sea turtles for a certain period of participation. This is also why it is not possible to divide a typical work day into predetermined working hours. If volunteers go on patrols after dark, work shifts are much shorter during the day. On the other side, if volunteers do not have beach patrols in the evening/at night, working hours will be during the day. Volunteers do not work longer than 35 to 40 hours / week.