Cozumel Youth Program Frees Baby Turtle
COZUMEL, August 10, 2013. – Over 600 baby turtles were freed in the South Point area of the park by children and youth who participated in the summer courses of the Foundation of Cozumel Parks and Museums.
The 157 participants enrolled in the Summer Course 2013 called “Summer Fun … Only Foundation” witnessed the release of 600 sea turtle nests in the beach and Punta Sur Ecotourism Park.
Hector Gonzalez Cortes, head of the Department of Conservation and Environmental Education (CEE), enrolled the girls and boys in the program, in order to inform them about the importance of this endangered species and the work carried out for more than three decades to maintain its existence.
After dividing them into two groups, Hector Gonzalez made a brief diagnosis of the participants’ knowledge of the care and protection of the two kinds of sea turtles that arrive to the island of Cozumel: The white or green and loggerhead.
In this final activity of the course, a survey was conducted to learn whether girls or boys had a better understanding of what they observed during the “Summer of Fun … Only Foundation”. The girls won.
Of the winning team of girls, the CEA director asked who best followed instruction. Danika Nunez Torres-Orozco, was unanimously nominated by her peers. The award was to allow her to release the only albino turtle that hatched during this period.
Participants formed a single row and obeyed the main recommendation: Stay in the assigned place, as the turtles – on their way to the sea – could be hurt by people moving about. Attendees, visibly moved, observed the process of liberation, as the sea turtles made their way to the sea. They lived a great experience and receive an important lesson of survival during their summer vacation.
