PUERTO SAN CARLOS, MEXICO-- Here along the Pacific coast of Mexico's Baja California peninsula, a celebration--Easter, a birthday, the arrival of important guests--calls for a meal of caguama, or turtle. Locals also covet the animal's medicinal properties. The best-tasting, according to most, is the East Pacific green turtle (Chelonia mydas).…
Wallace J. Nichols, Louise Brooks, Melania Lopez, Jeffrey A. Seminoff, Record of pelagic east Pacific green turtles associated with macrocystis mats near Baja California Sur, Mexico, Marine Turtle Newsletter, 2001, Volume 93, Pages 10-11, http://www.seaturtle.org/mtn/archives/mtn93/mtn93p10.shtml?nocount Juvenile East Pacific green turtles (Chelonia mydas), also known commonly as black turtles, encountered 20…
Pacific Loggerhead TurtlesUntil five years ago, the Pacific loggerhead turtles of Baja California presented a herpeto-logical enigma: Not a single nest had ever been found on North American sand. But in 1996, after two fruitless years spent scouring beaches from Guatemala to California in search of nesting evidence, researcher Wallace…
The road to the whales eats cars. When Wallace J. Nichols, an American turtle researcher, broke down he was stuck for two days until a mechanic happened by. The mechanic was a friend of the notorious Gordo Fischer, known throughout Baja California Sur for poaching sea turtles. While the mechanic…
