Costa Rica
 

Due to the pillaging of all the turtle eggs by Costa Ricans we should boycott this country till the goverment makes law forbidding raiding turle colonies.
Millions of eggs are stolen by locals and sold. This must stop.
No wonder sea turtles are endangered!

The majority of the turtle eggs available for consumption now are collected legally and under the guidance of wildlife biologists (they haul them out of Ostional by the hundreds of thousands). The income from the sales helps with Turtle conservation projects and the number of hatchlings is up.
http://costaricasbeaches.com/guanaca...ment/img_6019/

Punish an entire country

for the actions of a misguided few...

How clueless!

Why not do some volunteering at

latortugafeliz.com or leatherback.org

where populations are a

put your efforts

where they will actually do some good

and you might get some correct information.

These photos have been lurking around the internet and been discredited for so many years that it is hard to believe that the people who circulate them and call for a boycott of Costa Rica are acting in good faith.

The photos are of a legal and sustainable turtle egg harvest in Ostional. At Ostional thousands and thousands of turtles nest on a small stretch of beach over a period of a few days. Steve Cornelius, a research biologist, who later went on to a high position (Head of Science if memory serves) at WWF, determined that virtually all the eggs laid in the first 36 hours were destroyed by the turtles that were nesting afterwards. On that basis he worked out a deal with the community wherebye they were allowed to harvest eggs laid during the first 36 hours in return for protecting the eggs laid afterwards. The agreement was later written into law.

Here are a couple of URL's with more background
http://www.seaturtle.org/mtn/archive.../mtn86p6.shtml
http://www.cababstractsplus.org/abst...No=20073160365

I assume that the law and it's application could be improved, but calling it, a "world-wide shame" is at best ignorant and at worse an intentional smear.