Rare Leatherback Turtles Gain Protection in Costa Rica

As dawn breaks on Playa Grande, the light reveals shallow sand pits where leatherback sea turtles laid their eggs the night before.

This Costa Rican beach, a 2-mile-long (3.2-kilometer-long) stretch of sand popular with surfers, is guarded around the clock by a small army of biologists and volunteers from the Leatherback Trust, a nonprofit group working to save the world's largest sea turtles from extinction.

"This is the most important nesting beach for leatherbacks in the eastern Pacific." - Gabriela Blanco, monitoring-station head