Fishing Frenzy

The leatherback sea turtle could be the most amazing animal on earth. One of just six remaining species of marine turtle, it left its terrestrial forebears more than one hundred ten million years ago, developed flippers, and populated the Seven Seas---before there were Seven Seas.

Way back then, the world was a very different place. Mount Everest was not the tallest mountain in the world because it would not be created for another 65 million years. Antarctica and Australia were still almost connected when the first ancestors of leatherbacks took to the sea. Tens of millions of generations of turtles lived and died before those two continents assumed the positions they occupy today. Antarctica was near Africa and its weather was still temperate. The southern Atlantic Ocean was still forming as over countless eons South America moved away from what is now Africa.

During the Age of Dinosaurs these turtles occupied the oceans. But, it is imperative to understand that sea turtles, much like those we see today, were on earth millions of years before the first dinosaur lived. They were swimming the oceans 400,000 centuries before the "Terrible Lizard", Tyrannosaurus Rex, appeared on the planet. Yes, you read it correctly: 400,000 centuries.

And porpoises or whales? Sea turtles had probably swum the world's oceans for more than fifty million years before those mighty creatures---which are closely related to hippopotamus---evolved, left the land, and first entered the oceans, too.

Leatherbacks are really, really huge marine turtles weighing as much as two thousand pounds. This is not exaggerated because one, captured in Wales tipped the scales at 1,980 pounds. And, despite its size, this giant survived the extraordinary and terrible worldwide catastrophic extinction that killed nearly all the animals on earth. For that single reason it might be considered the most amazing animal on the globe. But, there is more.

Consider this: the world marveled, and properly so, at Michael Phelps's 200 meter freestyle world swimming record. But, in the time it took him to go that distance, a huge leatherback, weighing about as much as the entire offensive line of a professional football team, would pass a thousand meters. In fact, this magnificent relic is listed in the 1992 Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest reptile on earth!

These extraordinary animals may also be the world's greatest long-distance migrating creatures. Researchers tracked one of these giants 13,000 miles---one way.

Are you still unconvinced that, despite the accomplishments described above, it is the most amazing animal? The best part is still to come. This extraordinary creature routinely does something that Man has never been able accomplish. It can dive from the surface of the ocean down 4,000 feet where pressure is about 2,000 pounds per inch. How much pressure is that? Well, imagine that you are the captain of today's strongest, best built, most modern, sophisticated, nuclear attack submarine and you dove right alongside the leatherback. At a depth of about twenty five hundred feet, you would have to stop because even with the best technology and strongest metal and composite materials known to engineers you'd be crushed like a tin can if you went deeper. And the turtle? It would be munching on jellyfish 1,600 feet below.

There is also another amazing fact. Except where Man has killed them off, leatherbacks swim all tropical and subtropical waters on earth. But, and this is the really amazing thing, they have been seen as far north as the Arctic Circle and as far south as New Zealand where water temperatures can be only a few degrees above freezing. Yet, even though they are like all reptiles, cold blooded, they stay nearly tropically warm because they can maintain a body temperature as much as 32 degrees higher than the surrounding water.

Unfortunately, in just three decades, man's rapacious greed and carelessness have decimated the numbers of this magnificent creature. Between 1980 and 2005, it is estimated that the leatherback population in Mexico declined 99%, a catastrophe for this species since that country had about two thirds of the world's total leatherbacks. Mexico should not be singled out because, all across the globe, leatherback populations collapsed.

This reptile was witness to the separation of the continents and birth of the modern oceans, lived through the Age of Dinosaurs, survived the worst natural disaster in the last hundred million years that killed 90% of life on earth. It swims faster, farther, deeper than almost anything on the planet and has been in our oceans longer than there have been mountains of Tibet . Can it survive us?

Costa Rica is home to all but one of the world's marine turtle species and has set aside important refuges on both the Pacific and Caribbean coasts. And, Costa Rica ecotourism is playing an increasingly important role in saving sea turtles. On its Caribbean coast is Tortuguero, the world's largest green sea turtle preserve. The Pacific coast has Ostional Refuge hosting a beach with one of the world's largest olive ridley sea turtle nestings. Either of these places are good places for looking for leatherbacks, too.