The world according to me....

Experience Number 1:
“Excuse me, but have you seen any turtles?” I looked up and saw a group of tourists who had been walking in the opposite direction. I was on a tagging patrol and had encountered about a dozen leatherback turtles in the previous 500 meters. “Sure,” I said, pointing behind me. “There are lots of turtles just down there.” Then came the unexpected question. “Are they only leatherbacks? We have already seen some, and now we want to see a green turtle.” I explained that there were none, as it was the near the end of the green turtle nesting season. Disappointed, they turned around and headed to their rented bungalow.

Experience Number 2:
A crowd of about 50 people materialized from the distance. Most of the people arrived out of breath from running. Each question was the same: “Are there any hatchlings?” A loggerhead nest was being excavated 72 hours after its natural emergence, and indeed there were 3 or 4 straggler hatchlings left at the bottom of the nest. The volunteers carefully placed them in the “runway” between protective lines of tape, and slowly the turtles made their way to the ocean. All the tourists were transfixed and I heard someone whisper with excitement, “I never imagined that they would be so small….”

These two experiences occurred on two different beaches and in two different countries. But in my mind the most important difference was the relative density of sea turtles on each beach: more than 50 nests per night in first case, and less than 20 nests per season in the second. My personal view is that public interest generally is inversely proportional to nesting sea turtle abundance. After all, it is all relative.