Ministry of Public Security / Official Communique CP-1319-2015 – Police officers assigned to the port city of Limon, located in the Caribbean region of Costa Rica, rescued five sea turtles in the nick of time, thereby preventing their slaughter by nefarious poachers.

The incident occurred in Moin, near the area located between the beach and the maritime shipping docks. Officers from Fuerza Publica, the national police force of Costa Rica, were on a routine foot patrol when they noticed suspicious activity in a dark corner of the entrance leading to the beach.

A few suspects were acting as lookouts, and they rushed away from the scene when they noticed that the Fuerza Publica officers were headed towards the beach. Once the officers reached the spot, they started to search the area for evidence of suspicious dealings until they found out why the suspects fled: five large sea turtles had been turned upside down and were resting on their shells with their flippers crudely tied together with fishing line.

As previously reported by The Costa Rica Star, Fuerza Publica patrols in this sector of Limon during nesting season have proven essential to reduce crime in the area, which ranges from street-level drug dealing to hijacking of trucks going in and out of the docks and from poaching of sea turtle eggs to field butchering of these reptiles for their meat.

In many cases,the Fuerza Publica officers notify the Coast Guard whenever they rescue sea turtles, particularly when there are signs of injury or when eggs are found. This time, however, the officers determined that the marine animals were fit to be returned to sea; they placed them in the middle of the beach facing the nests in case they wanted to lay more eggs. However, that did not seem to have been the case as the sea turtles turned around to face the ocean and crawled towards the surf before swimming away.

The specific species of the sea turtles rescued was not reported at the time this news story was filed.