Every month at Costa Rica’s Ostional National Wildlife Refuge, tens to hundreds of thousands of female sea turtles arrive, often within a few days of each other, to lay their eggs on the beach.

The Ostional Wildlife Refuge was created in 1984 to protect the area from poachers stealing the sea turtle eggs. This makes this National Wildlife Refuge a very important Sea Turtle Conservation project.

But what makes Ostional Beach so special is the size of the arribadas, or “arrivals”. They are truly massive and at its peak, there are so many turtles it is almost impossible to walk on the beach! As a result, the first eggs often end up being trampled by the following turtles. For this reason it is legal for locals to collect some of the eggs.

Travel to Costa Rica