An Aussie biologist friend invited me to scour a turtle nesting beach under the sky of the southern cross. Following the tracks toward the dune, I heard the heaving and sighing typical of a turtle mama laboriously digging out her nest. I've been enthralled ever since. But these leatherbacks, I don't know about them. They're prehistoric monstrosities that diverged evolutionarily from the other seven species of sea turtle some 20 million years ago.
Leatherbacks wear no shell, having instead a black leathery back with several raised gray stripes.
These gigantic beasts, weighing as much as 1,420 pounds, have graced the earth since the age of dinosaurs, though, ironically, individuals only survive to be about 30 years old. All that history may soon be lost. The number of nesting females at Las Baulas has dropped from 1,646 in 1988 to just 215 in 1997, and scientists are scrambling to find out why. Unlike other turtles, leatherback flesh has a peculiar oily taste, keeping them off most humans' dinner plates. However, leatherbacks have a fatal tendency to gorge on floating plastic bags mistaken for jellyfish, and poachers illegally dig up eggs to sell or eat.