Setting turtles off on a great journey
Sarah Treleaven
Province
No matter how cute they are, you’re not allowed to toss Olive Ridley turtles into the sea.
On a Thursday evening in September, close to sunset on a silky beach in Mexico, about 30 resort guests stood around in bare feet, some holding glasses of chilled white wine. As the sky warmed to peachy pink tones darted by deep purple clouds, we waited patiently to make a small contribution to the natural world from which we so liberally take. Who knew liberating baby turtles would be so romantic?
Every year, Olive Ridley, or Golfina, sea turtles lay hundreds of eggs in multiple nests on the beach in front of Marquis Los Cabos, an oceanfront resort on the tip of the Baja California peninsula, where the Sea of Cortez meets the Pacific Ocean. The resort is state-certified as a sea turtle watch and rescue site, and the eggs are protected from the time they’re laid until they hatch in late September through mid-October.
The gestation period is approximately 45 days, and just before they’re due, Marquis employees take them inside to protect them from predators.
Eighty-day-old turtles arrived on the beach that night in a small blue cooler, the kind more typically filled with beer on a hot summer day. The golf-ball-size turtles appeared highly motivated to answer the call of the sea, flapping their arms in anticipation.
After some initial reluctance and light squealing from children and adults alike, we picked up the turtles by the sides of their shells, carried them to the sand, gently deposited them on the ground and pointed them toward the ocean.
Watching them struggle into the sea, being knocked back time and again by the sizable waves that crashed on the beach, I wondered why we couldn’t do the turtles a favour by wading out several metres to dump the contents of the cooler into the sea; or lightly toss each of the turtles into the water?
“Oh, no,” said Ella Messerli, general manager of Marquis. “They have to make their own way into the ocean. If they aren’t strong enough, that’s nature’s way . . . only one of 1,000 actually make it to adulthood.”
Despite that bleak prognosis, brides marrying at Marquis have recently taken to turtle liberation as part of their ceremony, a local take on the tradition of releasing white doves. Guests follow suit, each gingerly holding a squirming amphibian, wishing the bride and groom future luck as they set the turtle down on the sand.
Sarah Treleaven was a guest of Marquis Los Cabos.
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