Turtle guardian murdered in Costa Rica

Status
Not open for further replies.

thatrebecca

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2013
Messages
928
Location (City and/or State)
Los Angeles, CA
http://m.washingtonpost.com/nationa...f8fe-cd45-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story_1.html

Turtle conservation groups reassess after guardian is killed on Costa Rican beach

Washington Post
By Lenny Bernstein and Darryl Fears, Published: JUNE 04, 7:36 PM ET

Jairo Mora Sandoval knew his work was dangerous. The 26-year-old Costa Rican, who was paid to protect endangered leatherback sea turtles and their eggs on a Caribbean beach in the tiny Central American nation, had been threatened many times — probably by poachers, possibly by drug traffickers. Both kinds of criminals share a keen interest with conservationists in the 11-mile stretch of public sand just outside the city of Limon, in the country’s poorest province.

But in what is quickly becoming a watershed moment for environmental activists, Mora was kidnapped with four foreign volunteers and killed Friday, the first slaying anyone can remember among the legions who flock to eco-friendly Costa Rica to help protect endangered species. The four female volunteers, three from the United States and one from Spain, were tied up and robbed but left unharmed.

The killing already has begun to scare away volunteers, many of whom are young Americans, according to Mora’s nonprofit employer. Some believe the slaying could even affect the Costa Rican economy, which depends heavily on eco-tourism. It has drawn reaction from the Costa Rican president and the U.S. Embassy and has prompted a meeting of interested organizations held by the Costa Rican Ministry of the Environment on Tuesday.

The slaying also is seen as another sign that drug trafficking, once a small concern in Costa Rica, could be encroaching on a nation that prides itself on the many ways it is different from the rest of Central America.

“The work of protecting nesting beaches is basically done by nonprofit organizations and individuals who donate their time and resources to help. This entire conservation strategy is at risk,” said Todd Steiner, executive director of the Turtle Island Restoration Network in Olema, Calif. “It’s critical that the whole world pays attention to this and assures that these murderers are brought to justice and there is a commitment from the government to protect individuals, the endangered species and the tourists who basically make the economy of Costa Rica work.”

Steiner’s organization and other conservation groups have pledged a $12,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of Mora’s killers.
“We’ve never experienced anything remotely like this,” said David Godfrey, executive director of the Sea Turtle Conservancy in Gainesville, Fla., the 54-year-old organization whose founder, Archie Carr, is considered the father of sea turtle protection efforts. “. . . We’re all still a little bit in shock and trying to figure out how best to respond.”

Mora and the four volunteers had finished their patrol of leatherback nesting sites on Moin beach about 3 a.m. Friday and were driving along a beachfront road when they came to a spot blocked by a downed palm tree, Cristina Volkart Obando, vice president of the board of directors of the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network (Widecast), said in a telephone interview from San Jose, Costa Rica. When Mora got out to move the tree, a group of masked, armed men grabbed him and the women and took them to an abandoned house, where the women were tied up and robbed of their money and cellphones.

Mora was stripped naked, tied to the rear bumper of the car and dragged up the beach, Volkart said. Then he was shot in the face. His body was found on the beach about 7 a.m., she said. According to a Costa Rican newspaper, Mora died of injuries caused by blunt force trauma.

Widecast had employed Mora for about two years to walk Moin beach at night during nesting season, when leatherbacks, which can grow to 2,000 pounds, lay an average of 80 eggs in many hundreds of nests, she said. The primary breadwinner for his mother and sisters, Mora had been working with sea turtles since he was 15, she said. “It is not easy work,” she said. “You have to do it during the night, you have to do it during the rain . . . For him it was always the turtles. Working with the turtles, that was his main reward.”

Poachers can get $1 for a sea turtle egg, she and Godfrey said, from Costa Ricans who eat them for food or as alleged aphrodisiacs and fertility agents. Sea turtle shells and meat also are prized commodities. It is illegal to take any of the three.

Mora patrolled unarmed and was instructed to back off and call authorities if he saw poaching or other illegal activity. But police and the coast guard have not been very responsive this season, Volkart said, and Mora was vocal about the need for a better response, she said. Recently he was quoted in a local newspaper saying that poachers often are connected to drug traffickers, Volkart said. “He wasn’t scared of saying things, what was going on there,” Volkart said, though that courage often brought threats. The organization would withdraw Mora for a few weeks but always sent him back, confident that the harassment would not lead to violence, she said.

“The thing is, here in Costa Rica, until now . . . never, ever [has] someone crossed that line to make threats real,” she said.

Already, three groups have canceled their volunteer projects with Widecast, she said, and the organization has pulled out of Moin beach. The U.S. Embassy posted a message on its Facebook page saying that it is “deeply concerned about the senseless death of Jairo Mora Sandoval, a committed environmentalist who was raising the alarm about the threats conservationists receive from criminal groups trafficking in drugs or wildlife.”

Carr, founder of the Sea Turtle Conservancy, started his work in the 1950s in Tortuguero, Costa Rica, just 50 miles but a world away from Moin beach, Godfrey said. The turtles there nest in what is now a national park, protected by government personnel.

But Moin is a public beach, he noted, where authorities are spread thin and locals may have resented volunteers interfering with a tradition of consuming turtle eggs that goes back generations. “Maybe there’s a level of acceptance that egg poaching and turtle poaching is part of the history of Costa Rica and even though it’s illegal, that’s going to happen,” he said.

Steiner’s organization sent a group of volunteers to Costa Rica this weekend, but only after checking on the safety of the area, and Godfrey’s has concluded that it won’t charge its normal cancellation fee to anyone who pulls out because of Mora’s killing.

But the group’s work has to continue, he said. “This whole organization exists to study and protect sea turtles. The roots of our work are on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica,” he said. “We don’t walk away from that.”
 

wellington

Well-Known Member
Moderator
10 Year Member!
Tortoise Club
Joined
Sep 6, 2011
Messages
49,658
Location (City and/or State)
Chicago, Illinois, USA
That's too bad. Glad the others were safe. Sure hope this doesn't hurt the saving the turtle efforts. It would keep me away though.
 

tortadise

Well-Known Member
Moderator
10 Year Member!
Joined
Mar 2, 2012
Messages
9,560
Location (City and/or State)
Tropical South Texas
That sucks. Ive been with many of people that do that job on nights with them in Costa Rica on the beaches. Petty crimes is all that ever occurs in that beautiful conserved nation. Sad to see such a disgrace of humanity along with its greed and cowardly actions, towards a kind hearted gaurdian of the magnificent animals.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using TortForum mobile app
 

mike taylor

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Oct 28, 2012
Messages
13,461
This is so sad . Someone who is trying to do something good gets the worst of humanity has to offer . His death shouldn't be in vain they need to keep his work going I know I will be praying for his family and and him . I hope he can walk the beaches he loved and be with the turtles he payed the highest price for his life .

Sent from my C771 using TortForum mobile app
 

shanu303

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Dec 4, 2012
Messages
1,073
Location (City and/or State)
India
RIP Jairo..... this is just peak of cruelty and inhumanity ........ :(
 

Kathy Coles

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Sep 6, 2012
Messages
267
Location (City and/or State)
North Carolina
I hope they catch the murders and they get the death sentence. Yes, sea turtles are precious but humans deserve life.
 

Cowboy_Ken

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Joined
Nov 18, 2011
Messages
17,560
Location (City and/or State)
Suburban-life in Salem, Oregon
For Immediate Release, June 3, 2013

Contact: (Costa Rica) Didier Chacon, [email protected]
(U.S.) Todd Steiner, (415) 488-7652, [email protected]
(U.S.) Jaclyn Lopez, (727) 490-9190, [email protected]. Por favor email a [email protected] para recibir el aviso en español.
$10,000 Reward Offered by Conservation Groups for Information on
Murdered Sea Turtle Activist in Costa Rica

LIMÓN, Costa Rica— Conservation groups today announced a $10,000 reward for information on the brutal killing of Jairo Mora Sandoval, a sea turtle activist working to protect nesting sea turtles on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast near Limón. According to media reports, the 26-year-old conservationist was kidnapped by armed men on Thursday; his body was found a day later.
Environmental organizations around the world are calling for justice and today announced the Jairo Mora Sandoval Reward Fund for information leading to arrest and conviction of those responsible.
“Jairo’s murderers must be brought to justice so that sea turtle activists around Costa Rica and the world know that this will never be tolerated,” said Todd Steiner, a wildlife biologist and executive director of SeaTurtles.org. “The whole world is watching to make sure the Costa Rican government brings these thugs to justice and makes sea turtle nesting beaches safe for conservationists to do their work.”
“Jairo worked bravely and tirelessly to protect countless precious lives,” said Jaclyn Lopez, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “We can’t let cowardly criminals take down dedicated, selfless people like Jairo who’ve spent their lives defending the defenseless. Jairo’s assassins must be swiftly apprehended and tried.”
“Our emotional connection to each other, the sea turtles and their environment is what drives this work and makes Jairo’s death so heartbreaking, yet empowering,” said Wallace “J” Nichols, research associate at the California Academy of Sciences. “We all hope his death will somehow lead to more life.”
Mora was on sea turtle patrol with four foreign volunteers when he was ambushed by at least five masked men. The four women were also abducted in the attack, but survived. Mora was bound, badly beaten, and shot in the head.
Mora worked as a beach monitor for the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network, which has seen an increase in sea turtle poaching. In fact, the night of the abduction, there was an intensified police and Coast Guard presence in response to the rise in poaching.
As a result of Mora’s murder, WIDECAST has closed its sea turtle monitoring program.
Poaching, the illegal killing of sea turtles and taking their eggs, is a leading factor driving sea turtles toward extinction. As a result, sea turtles, including the leatherback sea turtles that nest on the beach Mora monitored, are protected by several laws, including Costa Rica’s Marine Turtle Population Law of 2002 and the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Sea turtle monitoring gives these ancient creatures a fighting chance at survival.

Contact [email protected] with information on the crime.

The Jairo Mora Sandoval Reward Fund is growing and is currently being supported by the following organizations:

Turtle Island Restoration Network www.SeaTurtles.org
Center for Biological Diversity www.biologicaldiversity.org
Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Network www.widecast.org
See Turtles www.seeturtles.org
LivBlue www.livBlu.org
Ocean Revolution www.oceanrevolution.org
PRETOMA www.Pretoma.org
Sea Turtle Conservancy www.conserveturtles.org
Humane Society of the United States www.hsus.org
The Leatherback Trust www.leatherback.org

Groups wishing to contribute to the fund, contact Todd Steiner at [email protected] or (415) 663 8590 x 103. Individuals wishing to contribute to the fund, click here www.seaturtles.org/donateforjustice. People can also sign a petition demanding justice at www.seaturtles.org/turtlejustice.

Additional Information:
http://www.ticotimes.net/More-news/...n-Playa-Moin-in-Costa-Rica_Friday-May-31-2013
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2...fender-found-slain-on-the-beach-he-patrolled/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...2c863e-ca65-11e2-9cd9-3b9a22a4000a_story.html
http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/05/31/2930814/costa-rican-environmentalist-found.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jairo_Mora
 

Spn785

New Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2012
Messages
809
Location (City and/or State)
Mid-Missouri
This type of story actually makes me want to volunteer. Unfortunately I don't have the time or money to be able to do so. :( I feel bad for the family and I hope they catch the monsters that did this.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

New Posts

Top