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Camaronal Sea Turtle Project
As a volunteer at the Camaronal Sea Turtle Project in Costa Rica, you will be working to protect sea turtles on the beach in the National Wildlife Reserve of Camaronal in the Province of Guanacaste.
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 The National Wildlife Reserve of Camaronal was founded in 1994 as part of the System of National Conservation Areas, and specifically of the Tempisque Conservation Area (ACT), which includes the Nicoya Peninsula. The reserve's boundaries are the beach, which is 3 kilometers long, and 200 meters from the high-tide line inwards. Tropical Adventures partnered with ACT in 2007 to support their many projects in the Tempisque area.
In addition to these tasks of conservation, we also carry out:
Volunteers in this project will be heavily involved with the nesting and hatching of sea turtles. You will be walking the beaches at night, seeking nesting mother turtles. When a turtle is found, you will tag and measure it, and carefully collect the eggs for transfer to the safety of a hatchery. During certain times of year, you will have the opportunity to participate in the release of hundreds of little hatchlings into the sea.
Please note: This is a great project for families, and is our only sea turtle project that allows children under the age of 17. As a volunteer you will be:
This work is very physically challenging. Your work will include:
You will need to bring with you the following:
Though this project is hard work, it is extremely rewarding. The turtles themselves are amazing, and the Camaronal area is beautiful. It's also a big surfing destination.
This project is different from our other sea turtle projects as it receives much less funding and support and is in much greater need of help. Another advantage of this project is that volunteers can spend some of their time helping in a nearby elementary school (with only 5 students), as well as in environmental education.
Please be aware that the reason sea turtles actually come to this area -- as well as our other sea turtle areas -- is because it's remote and people don't generally bother them. For this reason, you will not find a lot to do outside of the project, other than to get to know the people in the small community there. If you're looking for a hot night life, restaurants, bars and clubs, please consider another project. Many people choose to combine this project with our Wildlife Rescue Center or the Monte Alto Nature Reserve, working with sea turtles for a week and than moving on to one of these other projects. Another option is to do a combination project where you work with sea turtles for a week or more and than move on to another project closer to a town. The Wildlife Rescue Center and Monte Alto are great examples of projects that work well in combination with Camaronal's Sea Turtle Project. If you'd like to experience one week on the Pacific side and another on the Caribbean side, please consider Camaronal in combination with a project in the Puerto Viejo area, such as Teaching English in the Cocles Elementary School. As always, if you have any questions or would like more information, please contact us via email or call us toll-free at 1-800-832-9419.
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Our main purpose is to protect the our species of marine turtles nesting in this beach, which are: Olive Ridley, Hawksbill, Leatherback and Black turtles.
Something else to keep you busy while you're here is working in the very nearby elementary school with our five -- yes only five! -- students. They really enjoy art classes, English and tutoring, as well as environmental education games and sports. 
The success of the program was evidenced by the November 2006 mass arrival of egg-laying turtles (the first registered in 15 years). Unfortunately, proposed massive and unregulated real-estate developments constitute a grave threat to the Camaronal Wildlife Refuge. Your hosts, Julian and Dominica, are a young couple from Colombia. They run the project and will be your supervisors.