Olive Ridley Turtle ‘Arribada’

Written by Zephyr

Although global populations of sea turtles have declined by 95%, in Costa Rica they have taken steps to help them recover numbers and on some beaches their numbers increasing.

There are four different turtles found in Costa Rica. The first one and possibly the most popular is the Olive Ridley Sea Turtles. Second being the Hawksbill. Thirdly the Green Sea Turtle and lastly the Leatherback Sea Turtle.

The Olive Ridley Turtles is the smallest and most abundant of all sea turtles, growing up to 80 cm weighing less than 50 Kg.

Olive Ridley Turtles can breath under water for about thirty minutes but after that they have to take a break and go back up for air.

Olive Ridley Turtles lay 80 to 85 five eggs a year and it takes 45 days for the baby turtles to hatch. They lay their eggs on the beach above the high tide mark. The whole process takes one hour. I know it isn’t a lot but trust me there are hundreds of turtles on the beach. I was lucky enough to see the turtles laying their eggs. It is called a ‘Turtle Arribada’ (the Arrival) and they only happen a few times a year. We had to wake up at 4am in the morning and drive for 2 hours. When we got there, there were hundreds of sea turtles it was amazing! It smelt horrible due to the smell of the broken eggs and even though we were wearing face masks!

Sadly not all of the eggs survive because other sea turtles dig up the eggs as they lay their eggs (not on purpose). As soon as you walk onto the black sand you have to dodge eggs that have come to the surface. The beach is littered with them (you can see lots of white flecks on the photos and video – these are eggs). Vultures and dogs eat any eggs that come to the surface and basically clean the beach up. The local community are also allowed to harvest eggs for the first three days of the Arribada. It is the only place in the world where humans are allowed a small quota of eggs to eat. In return the community protect the turtles from poachers and clean the beach.

The eggs that survive are lucky but they have a lot more danger ahead of them when they hatch into baby turtles. Birds and sharks like to eat baby turtles. The female ones that do survive will come back to exactly the same beach (Playa Ostinial) that they were born on to lay their eggs.