Non-invasive nocturnal surveys of sea turtle nesting beaches at La Flor (Pacific) Nicaragua, and Pacuare Reserve and Tortuguero (Caribbean) Costa Rica, July 2013

Abstract

Marine turtles on the nesting beaches of La Flor public beach (latitude11.14282, longitude 11.14282, geographic datum WGS84), Pacific Nicaragua, and Pacuare Reserve public beach (latitude 10.20123, longitude 83.25925) and Tortuguero (latitude 10.59583, longitude 83.52520) , Caribbean, Costa Rica were observed during late hours after sunset. Observations where noninvasive, geo-referenced and observers stayed three meters away from the sea turtles, according to the national requirements (no light, and some limited red light was used for field clarifications). Many surrounding attributes were taken into consideration and measured including date, time, species, location, observed cysts present in the facial region, visually estimated carapace length, other disturbances present on the beach, number of people/tourists and dogs present, plastic encountered, and if applicable, start and end time of specific activities of nesting (such as start of nest time, start of egg laying and start of Ridley dance.) These data are part of a citizen science project and from a sea turtle fieldclass with Maderas Rainforest Conservancy. This dataset consists of an MS Excel sheet and is less than 1MB in size. Some photoes were taken to present the beaches and procedures.