Paul Pitura

Photo above: Volunteer biologist Nancy Tankersley reaches into a fresh turtle nest to scoop out the eggs before poachers do. Photo: Nancy Tankersley. Poachers got to the nest in Playa Lagartillo first. Where there should have been dozens of sea turtle eggs buried in the beach, there was just a hole. The eggs had been stolen by human hands, to be sold on the black market as aphrodisiacs (a myth).

Scarlet Macaws Return to the Guanacaste. In a flurry of crimson, blue and yellow feathers, seven scarlet macaws took flight into the green of the Costa Rican coastal forest, signaling the historic return of a species once vanquished from this area.