A serious problem with this species is the destruction of their nesting habitat. In 1991 the president of Costa Rica attempted to establish a National Park in Guanacaste Province. There is strong opposition to the formation of a national park and strong foreign interests do not want to see the development of a park so that they can build hotels on the beach. At the present time the tenuous Las Baulas de Guanacaste National Park in Costa Rica protects the world's third largest nesting beach for leatherbacks. Since female leatherbacks come back to nest approximately every three years, and each year 1500 females nest in this region, a total of 4500 turtles nest in this critical region during each three year nesting cycle.
Leatherback turtles are pelagic animals.
The females return to the beach briefly to nest up to eight times each nesting season at approximately 10 day intervals. Once the male leatherbacks enter the sea they never touch land again. The diet of the leatherback consists primarily of jellyfish. Their sole dependence on this particular food source has contributed to their demise because of their ingestion of transparent plastic bags which they mistakenly consume as food. The migratory paths of this largest ocean going reptile is unknown at the present time.