Fourteen years ago, Colombian green activist Hugo Ortega spotted a leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) laying eggs near Acandí, a community on this country’s Caribbean coast near the Panamanian border. Over six feet long and weighing at least 1,200 pounds, the animal reminded Ortega of a dinosaur. It had a large hooked beak, immense, white-fringed flippers and sharp ridges running down a leathery back. Its tear-filled eyes—the result of a natural process for expelling sea salt—gave it a forlorn look as it laid its eggs and then deftly used its hind limbs to cover the nest hole with sand. If Ortega was impressed, what he learned later troubled him. Though the leatherback outlived the dinosaur, it was on the World Conservation Union... [Log in to read more]