InvestEGGator Pilot Study: Policy Analysis, Recommendations, and Feasibility for Costa Rica

Abstract

Despite their protected status, a major threat to sea turtles is egg poaching for local consumption and commercial trade. In Costa Rica alone, as many as 100% of eggs are poached in some beaches (Fonseca et al, 2015). To help address this problem, our team partnered with Paso Pacífico who created the InvestEGGator–an artificial 3D printed egg containing a GPS tracker which resembles a real sea turtle egg. The primary component of the project involved initiating a pilot study of the InvestEGGator. We aimed to understand whether conservation nonprofits could utilize this device to track poaching routes. Through semi-structured interviews we found that NGOs have unique monitoring protocols; different sea turtle species overlapped at some nesting grounds; cell tower signal availability was limited; and poaching activity varied across NGO locations. These site differences affected deployment of the InvestEGGators. NGOs successfully deployed 21 devices between October and December 2019. Only two were poached, and we were unable to retrieve positional data. Our findings support that InvestEGGators are capable of visually deceiving poachers, but require improved internal hardware to render them reliable in the future. Second, we sought to understand the socioeconomic drivers of sea turtle egg poaching in Latin America, and potential policy interventions. We identified five primary reasons for high rates of continued poaching, including a strong cultural tradition of egg consumption and a lack of economic alternatives to poaching. We found that more governmental assistance is needed to ensure successful conservation outcomes.