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The Cocos Island Marine Turtle Tagging Research Project

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costarica-discover-it.com

A scientific satellite tagging expedition recently got underway at Cocos Island to study migrations of its green sea turtle and hawksbill visitors.

Researchers and conservationists travel Costa Rica open waters for 30 hours or more in their pursuit of migration habits about these ancient marine animals. Think of what they do as a kind of working Costa Rica vacation that, hopefully, will contribute to saving these marvelous marine reptiles now sadly endangered in much of their range.

Cocos Island, once described by the famed oceanographer, Jacque Cousteau, as the most beautiful island he had ever seen, lies some 340 miles off the shore of Costa Rica, about halfway to the Galapagos Islands.

It was not the pretty palm trees or beaches that captured the imagination of the Captain. Its beauty lies off its shores, under water, in a place that Costa Ricans have voted one of the Seven Wonders of Cost Rica.

Cocos Island has fired the imagination of novelists, seafarers, and pirates for more than 300 years and today it is probably the most famous island in the world.

Everybody knows about Cocos Island, whether living in Bangalore, India, or Anchorage, Alaska, the great cities of Europe or the Outback of Australia.

Say what? You don’t know it? Well, probably you know it by its more well known name: Jurassic Park. That’s what writer Michael Crichton called this remote island, which he used as its setting.

Or, maybe, when you were first learning to read, you knew it as Treasure Island.

130 years before there was a Captain Jack Sparrow, another swashbuckling pirate, Long John Silver, captured the imagination of childhood readers and even Walt Disney. Some folks think Cocos inspired that Robert Lewis Stevenson tale.

However, setting aside tall tales, this little island was a popular Costa Rica vacation spot for real pirates. Because if was far off the sailing lanes of the English pirate hunting fleets, it offered a safe place and an abundance of coconuts, a favorite ingredient in pirate drink.

It also was a great place to bury treasure and, indeed, even to this day, two fabulous booties, the Devonshire and Lima Treasures, may still be hidden there.

The Island is considered by many divers to be the finest place on earth for large marine animal viewing.

There is an incredible variety of fish and marine mammals, from huge whale sharks to tiny toad fish, and everything in between, not to mention porpoises and whales, in its fertile waters.

Sea turtles have been swimming the oceans of the world since the days of dinosaurs. Imagine Tyrannosaurus Rex feeding on them 200 million years ago when they went ashore to lay their eggs.

These ancient beings swim all the oceans of the world except the Arctic and Antarctic.

Once, the populations of marine turtles were so massive that lost sailors found land by listening for the sounds of sea turtles paddling towards nesting grounds.

Unfortunately, no more. Today, our indiscriminate beach development and robbing of their nests have put them at risk.

Millions were slaughtered in South America to make stylish Italian shoes, combs, and household ornaments.

Huge caravans of mules and horses carried off billions of eggs from the Mexican and Central American beaches. Even today eggs are poached to be sold in bars as aphrodisiacs.

However, many countries around the world, aided by researchers and conservationists have taken note of terribly declining numbers of marine turtles.

Captain Cousteau once sadly said: “If we go on the way we have, the fault is our greed and if we are not willing to change, we will disappear from the face of the globe, to be replaced by the insect..”

But, some governments and conservationists have not given up and are working to turn around the decline turtle populations.

Researchers are now tagging pelagic turtles like the green sea turtle in far-away places like Cocos Island. Some turtles are fitted with flipper tags while others bear satellite transmitters to help monitor their migrations and it has been discovered that some species swim thousands and thousands of miles of oceans, from tropical waters to the cold and deep waters off Newfoundland, Canada.

Perhaps we can still save these survivors.

We cannot undo the past but we are not condemned to its repetition.

Author Victor Krumm lives in Costa Rica. Visit his popular site

Costa Rica Vacations

and check out the spectacular

Seven Wonders of Costa Rica

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ArticleRich.com

America’s ‘Announcer Guy’; Don LaFontaine

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Art Gib

“In a world . . .” that is saturated with television, radio commercials and movie trailers, there remains one man whose omnipresence reigns supreme; Don LaFontaine, the Announcer Guy.

For decades movie goers and television watchers have been familiar with ‘the announcer guy.’ We are so accustomed to his deep rich voice narrating the opening scene that he seems as much a staple part of any movie as the credits. It’s almost strange to think that there is really a person behind that disembodied voice, and even more strange to realize that for the last forty years it has been the voice over talent of primarily one man; Don LaFontain.

In many ways, LaFontain defined the voice over talent industry. Most studios are willing to pay hefty fees for the voice over talent of LaFontain, as adding a voice over by LaFontain has been shown to significantly increase the prestige of any film that might otherwise have been considered mediocre. LaFontain immortalized the phrase “In a world where . . .” for opening scenes, which has now become a cliche. Several voice over actors, the most well known of whom are Ashton Smith, Hal Douglas and Peter Cullen, have built their careers imitating LaFontain.

Don LaFontain began his career in 1964 as a recording engineer producing promo spots for the National Recording Studios. While working on the western Gunfighters of Casa Grande, LaFontain had to step in for a voice over actor who couldn’t make it. The client was very pleased with his work and LaFontain’s voice over career was launched.

Since then, LaFontain’s signature deeply dramatic voice over style has been in such high demand that he reportedly voices sixty promotions a week, sometimes even thirty-five a day. In order to accommodate his busy recording schedule, LaFontain is known for employing a limo driver so he doesn’t have to waste time parking on his way to recording studios. For the last few years however, LaFontain has done most of his voice over work from the comfort of his Hollywood Hills multi-million dollar home in his personal recording studio.

Because of his huge and long lived presence in audio media, LaFontain is the most parodied of any voice over talent. The trailer for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy gives a definition for what a trailer is, saying the narrator “will normally employ a deep voice that sounds like a seven-foot-tall man who has been smoking cigarettes since childhood.” This is not only a blatant reference to Don LaFontain, but the voice narrating is a clear parody of LaFontaine by fellow voice over artist Ashton Smith.

Some of LaFontain’s best known work is The Godfather, Jeopardy!, the Batman movies, and America’s Most Wanted.

Don LaFontain

has been the most famous voice over talent(http://voiceoverla.com/) in America for more than forty years. The author Art Gib is a freelance writer.

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ArticleRich.com