MARLBOROUGH tourist information assistant Maggie Moore has just returned from a two-week trip to Central America working on a sea turtles conservation project.

Mrs Moore, of Cherhill, travelled to Costa Rica after being awarded an Earthwatch Millennium bursary funded by the Millennium Commission.

Her work included patrolling a stretch of beach heavily guarded to prevent poachers gathering eggs as they were laid by giant leather back turtles. The turtles are threatened with extinction because their eggs are prized as an aphrodisiac in certain places.

Mrs Moore, 50, said she was also sickened to discover that many turtles die a lingering death after becoming caught in illegal fishing nets and having their fins hacked off by fishermen.

On patrol with other members of the team, Mrs Moore watched the huge turtles up to a metre and a half long and weighing 500 kilos 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. 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.

"They fire out up to 100 of the soft-shelled eggs which we had to gather and then they were all taken to a hatchery."

Mrs Moore was told the leather backs' numbers have fallen to the point where there is fear over their survival. They eat only jellyfish and travel huge distances in search of food but always return to the same beaches to lay their eggs.

Unfortunately the eggs, which take about 60 days to hatch, had not started hatching by the time Mrs Moore's two week stay came to an end.

She said: "I'd like to go back in January to see some of the eggs hatch and to sea the young turtles released in the sea.

"I was there for just two weeks but they were absolutely wonderful and I would have liked to have stayed for five months to see the eggs hatch and the turtles released."

Mrs Moore added: "Unless something drastic is done they will be extinct in 20 years."