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Turtle Expert Saving Nests in Costa Rica

An expert on turtles and how rampant beach development has destroyed their nests has been recruited by Costa Rica's government to help prevent a similar situation there.

BOCA RATON — Kirt Rusenko very well could be person of the year, to sea turtles at least.

For the longest time, the marine conservationist has been drawing attention to the lights and fishing practices affecting turtles at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center and other South Florida beaches. Most recently, he welcomed a British film crew doing a turtle documentary, and he was invited to Costa Rica late last year to address the country's nesting decline.

"The beach is almost pristine," Rusenko says of Playa Grande (Big Beach), which lies in the North Pacific Coast in the Guanacaste province and where he spent the majority of his visit.

It is developed with a few single-family homes. Nobody is allowed to build within 50 meters of a high tide line, which means any allowed structure must go behind the dune vegetation.

As it sits, it would be easy for Costa Rican officials to implement more protection laws or some type of light replacement program.
In South Florida, where the presence of development is far more obvious, a roadway project stretching along State Road A1A north and south of Spanish River Park began installing embedded pavement lights instead of overhead lights. For a beach such as this, it's still early.

"We are already developed," Rusenko says. "And those other countries aren't."

But that might not always be the case, which is why the country needed not only an expert on turtles but also someone who has known development as a threat. Playa Grande wants to remain single-family houses and low density and avoid what appears to be happening in other areas where condominiums with "front and ocean view" already are being advertised.

Even now, without much development, the beach is seeing fewer turtle nests. The leatherback numbers have dropped dramatically, even more than at Gumbo Limbo. In 1989 the number of female leatherbacks nesting on Playa Grande was 13,000. In 2006 it was 56.
The good news, he says, is that people are listening and taking this seriously, an indication being the invitation for him to meet with Costa Rica's president, Oscar Arias Sanchez, and Costa Rican congressmen.

"We want to take you up on your proposal to create an alliance, a sort of sister city arrangement where we would share environmental and turtle protection experiences and expertise. How do we get started?" said the thank you letter neighbors of Playa Grande and the country's turtle protection association addressed to him.

Rusenko, 56, is finalizing ideas for a new tank area for turtles and other marine life at Gumbo Limbo, a project he has been working on for five years. The plan is to have four tanks, two of which will look like aquariums and be 20 feet in diameter and 7 feet deep.

If all goes smoothly, construction could begin this summer, he said.

Rusenko, who has worked at the nature center for 12 years, always was interested in marine life, he says, even while growing up in Syracuse, N.Y. But what exactly triggered the dermatology research assistant professor at the University of North Carolina to move to Florida?

A little bit had to do with being sick of the snow and seeing pretty ocean pictures.

The rest?

"I think it came from Jacques Cousteau," he says of the French explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, scientist, photographer, marine researcher and pioneer.

Rusenko appears to have been a victim of the Cousteau fever, becoming interested in the man's adventures and reading all his books. After moving to Florida in 1991, Rusenko worked for a lab equipment firm. Two years later he was volunteering at the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, eventually leading him to Boca's Gumbo Limbo center.

A section in Carl Safina's book, Voyage of the Turtle, mentions him, but Rusenko won't let out that detail unless he has to - or if you ask how Costa Rica heard of him.