Krinda

PLAYA GRANDE, Costa Rica -- This resort town was long known for Leatherback Sea Turtle National Park, nightly turtle beach tours and even a sea turtle museum. So Kaja Michelson, a Swedish tourist, arrived with high expectations. "Of course we're hoping to see turtles -- that is part of the appeal," she said.

But haphazard development, in tandem with warmer temperatures and rising seas that many scientists link to global warming, have vastly diminished the Pacific turtle population.

On a beach where dozens of turtles used to nest on a given night, scientists spied only 32 leatherbacks all of last year. With leatherbacks threatened with extinction, Playa Grande's expansive turtle museum was abandoned three years ago and now sits amid a sea of weeds. And the beachside ticket booth for turtle tours was washed away by a high tide in September.

"We do not promote this as a turtle tourism destination anymore because we realize there are far too few turtles to please," said Álvaro Fonseca, a park ranger.

Even before scientists found temperatures creeping upward over the past decade, sea turtles were threatened by beach development, drift net fishing and Costa Ricans' penchant for eating turtle eggs, considered a delicacy here. But climate change may deal the fatal blow to an animal that has dwelled in the Pacific for 150 million years.

Marvelously done!