Our story began during our first full September living here in Salinas Grandes with our dogs in a nonstop frenzy of barking at all the activity on the beach. When I went down to check out the commotion I found locals on horseback, walking, and on bicycles with their flashlights a glare. To my surprise they were all in the hunt for turtles laying eggs. As I hung out with the locals I was watching them following the turtles on shore as they waited patiently for the eggs to be laid and covered by sand in their nests. After the turtles were finished and headed back to the sea they dug the eggs up and put them in sacks waiting for the next turtle to show up. I asked them what they were going to do with the eggs and the answer was, “Take them to the market for money, of course”. After a little research I discovered that about 10% of the eggs were being eaten by the locals and the rest were being sold.

During one of my trips to Mexico I had the opportunity to help with saving this endangered species and it was very fulfilling. I learned that 1% of the turtles would survive and in ten years make it back to the same breach to start the process again. Here in Salinas Grandes I discovered that 0% of the eggs laid would ever hatch. At this point I decided to get involved. I enlisted the help of my caretaker, and one local fisherman to save the turtles here. We paid the market rate for the eggs and soon everyone was bringing their eggs to us instead of selling them to the market. Within days we were up to our necks in turtle eggs and flying by the seat of our pants.

The next major step came when the local fisherman introduced me to La Marena. Through La Marena we became hooked up with the University and Alcadia in Leon and became an official Nicaraguan Turtle Sanctuary. Through this association we learned the best practices and assisted in more research to even better the hatch rate. From there we blossomed into the most successful turtle sanctuary in the region with the highest egg hatching success rate.

By the end of our first year we had bought over 10000 eggs and released over 8500 baby turtles back to the sea.