When Mónica Vallarino first began saving turtle eggs from poachers on a beach south of Acapulco back in the early 1990s it was mostly a challenge of persuading local people they shouldn’t be taking them for food. But now she also risks confronting organized gangs who zip about on quad bikes with radios and can pull out guns. They want the eggs to sell on the black market and have links to bigger crime networks in the area.
“I have suffered a lot of consequences doing this work,” says Mónica, 63, in her colorful camp Amigos del Mar Acapulco, meters from the Pacific Ocean on Playa Hermosa. “But there is always a new day, with new light and new energy to keep on going.”
Mexico is a heartland of tortoises and most of the species of sea turtles grace its beaches, including the giant leatherback, the green olive ridley, and the huge-headed loggerhead, known fondly as Caguamas. Indigenous communities living by the sea have a tradition of eating turtle eggs and meat. However, laws to protect turtles were first introduced in Mexico in the 1960s and then hardened in 1981 and 1990. Now those who harm turtles or poach their eggs face up to nine years in prison.
Despite the law, a black market thrives for selling turtle meat and eggs, with myths that they function as an aphrodisiac, or form of Viagra. Merchants in Acapulco, and in markets across Mexico, hawk them under the code term “limones blancos” or “white limes.” In high season, they are sold for as cheaply as 50 pesos (three dollars) for a dozen in Pacific beach communities. But in the infamous market of Tepito in Mexico City in low season, a single egg can fetch hundreds of pesos while a whole turtle could go for thousands.
Poachers will not only swipe eggs that the turtles lay on the beach but cut eggs out of their flesh, which are considered a delicacy. They also slay whole turtles for their meat and blood, often battering them to death with hammers.
At the camp on Playa Hermosa, Mónica shows us a turtle with a severe head injury that was rescued. She says that poachers attacked the animal but fled…
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