Tri-Beta Club
Take a moment to imagine all the ocean animals you’d like to see. Your list might include whales, dolphins, sharks, giant octopi, and maybe sea turtles. If sea turtles are on the list, you’re definitely not alone. It’s estimated that tourists spend $1.25 billion dollars annually to see these majestic reptiles. There are actually seven different species of sea turtles, and they all live in the ocean, coming to shore only to nest. It is easiest to see the turtles when they are nesting, and this happens on shores all over the world, from Florida to Africa.
Sea turtles are quite gentle animals and it is possible to get close when they are on land. Unfortunately, these animals are also endangered. Between habitat loss, fishing mortalities, eating plastic bags in the ocean, and being hunted for meat; sea turtles might not be around forever. This is really too bad since sea turtles have been around for at least the last hundred million years and seemed to be doing just fine before humans.
This is where ecotourism plays a monumental role in saving the animals older than the dinosaurs. It is currently possible to pay money to see sea turtles from locales in the United States, like Florida, to somewhere more exotic, like Costa Rica. This is ecotourism, and some of the money generated goes to help protect sea turtles. However, this can be a bit expensive. A more affordable option that is more hands on with the turtles and plays a bigger role in conservation is referred to as volunteer tourism, a specific kind of ecotourism. People pay a smaller fee for researching turtles, counting eggs in nests, tagging and tracking turtles, measuring turtles, and seeing how many turtles eventually hatch. This gathers knowledge about the turtles and allows protected areas to be created on beaches and in the ocean.
Both flavors of ecotourism, whether volunteer or not, generate money for the turtles and create an incentive for places where turtles nest to be protected. If turtles are lost from a beach due to habitat loss, the tourists that only come to see the turtles would also be lost. Tourist dollars can be a powerful incentive, and sea turtle tourism appears to be on the rise. Earthwatch estimated that sea turtles are the third highest ranking ecotourism focus, after marine mammals and terrestrial animals. And, the people that make money with the ecotourism are definitely not out poaching turtles at night.
Sea turtle tourism and conservation opportunities are all over the Caribbean area in Florida, Puerto Rico, Bermuda, and in Central America. Costa Rica, in particular, has some of the most stringent protections on the turtles in the world and has some of the largest nesting populations as well. In short, while sea turtles are endangered and definitely need to be protected, through the help of ecotourism it can only be hoped that sea turtles will remain an animal that can be seen nesting in the wild for years to come.
If you would like to know more about the majestic sea turtle, conservation, or ecotourism please email us at asctribeta@gmail.com. Questions or comments about life and science are always welcome.
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