Susan Hunnicutt

Last month I spent 8 days as a volunteer at the Sea Turtle Conservancy’s research station in Tortuguero, Costa Rica. Sea turtle eggs have an incubation period of about 60 days. At the 62-63 day mark the nests are excavated to see if the clutch has hatched. Quite often there are a few baby turtles that have not made it out. On this day, there is one. Lightly buried, it emerges, reaches upward. I help it out, hold it in my palm. Like a newborn baby, reflexively grasping its mother’s finger, this turtle hatchling wraps its long front flippers around my pinky & forefinger. I take it to the shore and watch as it scrambles to the sea, where the surf carries it to its new home. Yo salve una torguga marina…