Costa Rica is home to several sea turtles including the Leatherback, Green, Hawksbill, and Loggerhead turtles.
For years, volunteers in Costa Rica have battled against poachers to protect the endangered leatherback, green, and hawksbill turtle species as they move onto the country's beaches to lay their eggs.
Land-based attractions aren't in short supply either, with volcanoes in Rincón de la Vieja national park and cloud forests around Monteverde. Tortuguero national park is a great place to see leatherback and green turtles.
For its part, Nicaragua is home to four sea turtle species: the olive ridley, the leatherback, the green and the critically endangered Hawksbill sea turtle.
The barrier island on the Florida coastline is a wild environment inhabited during the summer by loggerhead, leatherback, and green turtles and there's 2.7km of white sand to enjoy at your leisure.
WHAT -- At this vacation-club property two hours southeast of Orlando, a Turtle Troop for children goes out onto the beach at 7 30 a.m. with a Disney staff member to identify the tracks of loggerhead, leatherback and green turtles, locate new nests and mark them with stakes.
They covered the diets, anatomy, habitats and mating rituals (no love, just procreation) of loggerheads, leatherbacks and green turtles, the three main species that nest on Florida's east coast.
Gjernes et al (1990) identified 9 leatherbacks, 1 green turtle and 1 olive ridley among 22 entangled turtles, the remaining 11 being unidentified.
Leatherbacks and greens, both endangered species, also dig-and-drop on the state's shores.
Among the three species, loggerheads posted the highest number of nests, with 10,387; leatherbacks and greens followed far behind with 268 and 988, respectively.
Since 1960, marine turtle occurrences include 19 leatherbacks, 9 greens, 2 Pacific Ridleys, 2 loggerheads, and 2 unidentified hard-shell turtles.
