Sea Turtles Lay Eggs Where Massacre Occurred

September 6, 2005 9:34 a.m. EST


Christina Ficara - All Headline News Staff Reporter

Mexico City, Mexico (AHN) - Over the weekend, more than 100,000 protected Olive Ridley sea turtles arrived onto a Mexican beach, laying some 10 million eggs. Just weeks before, poachers massacred spawning turtles on the same beach.

Mexico's environmental protection agency, Profepa, tells Reuters on Monday that the turtles arrived over a 72-hour period at Escobilla beach in Oaxaca state.

Another 25,000 Olive Ridleys arrived on other beaches in Oaxaca last week in a long-standing annual ritual that draws females back to the same beaches where they were born to deposit their eggs.

Last month, egg poachers bludgeoned and chopped about 80 of the turtles to death, causing elevated security with this arrival.