Turtle Night at Playa Grande

Giant leatherback turtles are the largest of all reptiles and swam the oceans while dinosaurs roamed the earth. Every year the females swim thousands of miles to lay their eggs on the beaches where they were hatched. They haul themselves out of the ocean onto a sunny beach, dig a hole with their flippers and lay from 50 to more than 100 eggs. Then they dance to scruff up the sand and to cover up any evidence that they had been there. Only a few of their babies make it to adulthood. The rest are food for gulls, sharks, and other fish. Human activity threatens the survival of the species. Fishing nets, plastic bags that the turtles mistake for jellyfish, and human habitation on beaches causes the deaths of thousands every year. Slow-moving on land, leatherback turtles soar underwater as if they are birds with wings.