COSTA RICA: Riot Control Officers Protect Nesting Sea Turtles In Costa Rica

In an effort to prevent interference by awful tourists who have previously disrupted nesting sea turtles in Costa Rica, the Ministry of Public Security (Spanish initials: MSP) has alerted officers from a special police unit to deploy to Playa Ostional, province of Guanacaste, in case they are needed.

According to a news report filed by Pablo Rojas of online news daily CRHoy.com, the MSP has reached an agreement with the Ministry of the Environment (Spanish acronym: MINAE) and the community development association of Ostional to provide security for the thousands of Kemp’s ridley sea turtles that massively arrive on the beach during several weeks of the nesting season.

Part of the security plan in Ostional will consist of Transit Police officers guarding the access roads in town. MINAE officials and officers from Fuerza Publica, the national police force of Costa Rica, will be posted at the six entry points to the beach. Only two entrances will be open to tourists, who must arrive in groups of no more than ten and must also be accompanied by certified tour guides. Each visit shall last no longer than 30 minutes.

In addition to the above, officers from the Operational Support Group (Spanish acronym: GAO) will be on standby. GAO is a special, quick-reaction unit of Fuerza Publica; some of their primary duties include: riot control, breaching, handling unruly crowds, and assisting special weapons and tactics (SWAT) teams. The GAO officers will deploy to Ostional in case a situation like the one recently described by government.

The day-trippers swarmed onto the beach to watch one of nature’s most extraordinary sights, hundreds of thousands of olive ridley sea turtles crawling out of the ocean to lay their eggs in the sand.

The turtles did not want the company. Scared off by the thousands of tourists massed along Ostional Beach on Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast, snapping selfies and perching their children on the turtles’ backs, the ancient reptiles simply turned around and retreated into the sea.