TOURIST information assistant Maggie Moore, has just returned from Central America after spending two weeks working on a sea turtles conservation project, and she can't wait to return.

Mrs Moore who lives in Cherhill, the mother of twins, Zoe and Sam, 21, travelled to Costa Rica after being awarded an Earthwatch Millennium bursary funded by the Millennium Commission.

Her work included patrolling a sector of a seven kilometre stretch of beach, heavily guarded to prevent poachers, gathering eggs as they were laid by giant leatherback turtles.

The turtles are threatened with extinction because their eggs, which some poachers still manage to get to before the conservationists, are highly prized as an aphrodisiac in certain parts of the world.

Mrs Moore, 50, who works at the TIC in Marlborough, said she was sickened to discover many turtles died a lingering death after becoming caught in illegal fishing nets and having their fins hacked off by the fishermen to disentangle them.

On patrol with other members of the Earthwatch team, Mrs Moore watched the huge turtles, up to a metre and a half long and weighing 500 kg (half a ton), drag themselves out of the sea and up the sandy beaches to dig their nest holes.

She said: "They take about half an hour to get up the beach and then they dig the perfectly round holes in which they lay their eggs."

Using red torches, so as not to disturb the laying turtles, the patrols scoop up the leathery tennis-ball sized eggs as they are being laid. Mrs Moore said: "The turtles go into what can best be described as a trance when they start laying and they did not know we were there.''

Mrs Moore was told leatherbacks numbers have fallen to the point where there is fear over the survival of the species. They eat jellyfish and travel huge distances in search of food, but always return to the same beaches in Costa Rica. A decade ago as many as 1,900 turtles were counted. Last year the figure was down to about 400.

She said: "If I can, I would like to go back in January to see some of the eggs hatch."

She now plans to speak to local conservation and community groups about the risk the species faces unless there is greater international support for its preservation.