Could humans help save a threatened species of sea turtle by eating its eggs? In the 1980s, a group of scientists and conservationists took that gamble, joining hands with turtle-egg poachers at Ostional, a humble Pacific coast village of rural fincas and pescadores on Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula. Each year, arribadas, or mass nestings, bring hundreds of thousands of olive ridley sea turtles to the 7-kilometer (4.3-mile) volcanic sand beach fronting the town. The phenomenon is as awe-inspiring as it is wasteful. So many turtles arrive over a week’s time that countless nests are destroyed in a fury of flying yokes and egg shells, a mess biologists call the “sandy omelet.” Recognizing the bounty, and the waste, turtle biologists and townspeople... [Log in to read more]