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Background

Susana works nights on the beaches in Cancun where hundreds of sea turtles come ashore to popular beach sites to lay their eggs. Her job is to find the eggs and rebury them in safe spots to increase the chances of their survival. This is her story:

Sea Turtles

Each night after the hundreds of tourists leave the sandy beaches in Cancun, they are replaced by hundreds of sea turtle mothers looking for spots to bury their eggs. Susana’s job is to find the eggs and dig out, by hand, each of the hundreds of eggs laid by each turtle every night. Using red light to avoid disturbing the turtle mothers, Susana waits on the beach watching for the flipping sand from massive sea turtle fins.

After finding the turtle nests, and observing the mothers laying the eggs, Susana will move in, often while the mothers are laying the eggs, to move them to a secure location, increasing the likelihood of survival. Sea turtle hatchlings often only survive at one percent rate, these efforts to relocate the eggs help maintain and improve those survival rates.

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The process is tough work. Susana is often working from 11pm until 7am each night. When she’s not there to see the turtles laying their eggs, she’ll look for the soft sand and dig carefully with a shovel and small stick, finding the softest sand that indicates where the eggs have recently been buried.

Susana has been involved in relocating the turtle eggs for 6 years. She finds the work rewarding and feels she’s making a real difference in the lives of these majestic creatures.

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Her Perspective

As a very quiet and reserved person, Susana silently goes about her work each night. She brings out individual eggs which look like sand covered ping pong balls, gently and carefully. The tasks is a lot of work, with 5 – 20 buckets of 150 – 200 eggs, each night. It’s one by one work, all in an effort to just allow one percent to survive. It’s about major efforts to make a major difference for only a select few turtles. Her job gives her the perspective of doing what you can and giving your all, to make that life saving difference, even if it’s only for a few lucky hatchlings.

As she applies that to her life, she puts her all into giving those around her a chance for improvement, a chance for life. She quietly goes about making the world a better place.

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