Selfie-crazed tourists prevent sea turtles from nesting in Costa Rica

If you're thinking of taking a few days to do some ecotourismin Costa Ricaduring your next vacation down south, the country's governmenthas a message for you: Please be respectful.

Officials from theCosta RicanMinistry of Environment and Energy have been speaking out in recent weeks against snap-happy visitors who they say are interfering with the nesting habits of a vulnerablesea turtle species by attempting to take selfies with them.

According to San Jos-based newspaperThe Tico Times,hundreds of tourists swarmed a seven-kilometrestretch ofOstional Beach on Costa Rica's Pacific coast earlier this month to watch alarge group ofolive ridley sea turtles come ashore and lay their eggs.

Ostional, which lies within the nationally-protectedTempisque Conservation Area, is considered one ofthemost important sitesin the worldfor the nesting of this threatened species. While the turtlesarrive each year by thethousands, their nesting season is relatively short, beginning inAugust and ending in October.

Sincethe population of olive ridleys continues to decline(there are 50 per cent fewer of theseturtles than there were inthe 1960s,) conservation officials take any sort of interference with their ability to reproduce seriously.

Mobs of tourists who stomp around,try to take selfies with, and even pick up nesting olive ridley sea turtles are one such type of interference.

The Environment Ministry's workers unionreported in a Sept. 8 post onitsFacebook page that "hundreds of tourists stood in the way of the turtles" during one of their most recent mass nesting sessions,prompting manyturtles to leave the beach without laying any eggs.

Seven photos were included with the post to show whatthe turtles faced upon their arrival that weekend, but none captured what a refuge administratortold the newspaper LaNacinhe saw.

"Some tourists touchedthe turtles, others stood on top of the nests, andparents placedtheir children on top of the turtles to take photographs," wrote The Tico Times, citingthe administrator'scomments toLaNacin.

Sea turtle biologistVanessa Bzy recounted a similarly hectic scene in an interview with The New York Times on Friday.

"I almost had a panic attack because it was so crowded," saidBzy, who has been studying olive ridley nesting atOstional Beach for five years and was in a boat at the time. "It was basically a free-for-all."

As news of this particular incident spreads, supporters of sea turtle conservationhave beenspeaking outagainst this type ofbehaviour.

As the workers unionassured the public in its Facebook post, officials fromCosta Rica's Ministry of Environment are investigating the situation in an attempt to prevent tourism from hampering or limiting "the natural spawning process of turtles" at OstionalBeach in the future.

"We are reassessing the way we work and the way we tackle the issue," saidMauricio Mndez, deputy director of the Tempisque Conservation Area, tothe New York Times on Friday.

He hopes to double the number of police officersworking the area and restrict access to the beach.

If that doesn't keep tourists at bay, theCoast Guard may be calledin to help with security.