Have you ever thought about illegal poaching of turtle eggs? You definitely might not have thought about it much. If you haven’t, you’ll find out more about it in this summary. Let’s dive in into today’s topic.

People started stealing turtle eggs from their nests. Now, why would people waste time to do this? It’s because people pay an arm and a leg for these eggs; they are very valuable. It’s a problem, though, because that means fewer turtles will hatch. Sea turtles lay up 120 eggs at a time, but poachers sometimes have sticky fingers and steal more than 100 eggs from one nest! Problems almost always have solutions, and that’s what Paso Pacifico was willing to find out-the resolution to this problem.

In order to stop, or at least reduce, the amount of poaching of sea turtles’ eggs, experts had to know where the eggs were going as well as who the culprits were and catching them. Scientists decided to create a fake egg. How would they do that? Williams-Guillen and others used a material, Ninja-Flex, which was printed out with a 3D printer. (The things technology can do these days!) After opening it, they placed a GPS to track the locations the eggs were being taken to. Then they sealed it with glue, and it was ready to be put inside a nest.

More of these fake eggs were created and placed throughout beaches on the Caribbean and Pacific coasts of Costa Rica. When the poachers picked the eggs up, scientists could track them and where the poachers were going. Scientists identified five common egg paths, but what was shocking was the distance these poachers went just to sell the eggs. It wasn’t in a local shop; the eggs were being sold farther away from the location. One of the poachers even stole an egg approximately 85 miles away from the nest!

Most of the poachers were probably living hand to mouth and needed to make more money to survive. That’s why the team of scientists will question the poachers where these eggs end up to find out even more locations and receive more information. That is what their goal is. Maybe charging more money for poachers stealing eggs would make people less likely to illegally buy and sell them. As you can see, turtles are a very beautiful species, and we shouldn’t try to harm, sell, or buy their eggs or the animals themselves.

Written by Kruti Patel