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NARRATOR: Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula
is a place rich in wildlife
and steeped in history.
Where a god of hurricanes exposes the beaches
and a goddess of fertility populates them
creating the "Island of the Women".
But it's not only humans with ancient
rituals of birthing and motherhood here.
It's a place of transformations,
where a shapeless, giant sea monster
troubling the coastline can become
a golden floating rainforest
and where the sands can bloom
with the tiniest of turtles
on the Living Beach.
NARRATOR: The magnificent frigatebird is a perfect pilot,
spending most of its life
above the beaches and in the air.
It kites through Mexican skies,
with long, narrow wings spanning seven feet.
A white patch on her neck, breast and belly
distinguishes the female of the species
as do her maternal instincts.
A magnificent frigatebird
will care for her fledglings
for more than a year after they've hatched,
one of the greatest durations of any bird.
She might ride these skies for a week unbroken,
with very little rest, scanning the oceans
in order to feed her young.
Here, on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula
and its neighboring islands
there are many such stories of nurturing,
birthing and creation.
One of the first of these stories
comes from the Ancient Mayans
who lived here long ago.
They believed that the god Huracán
blew a gusting wind over the surface of the ocean
ripping away its waters,
and exposing the land for the very first time.
After the beaches and land,
came the plants and animals,
and then the people,
with their great stone cities and temples.
To the Mayans, the storm god Huracán,
whose name is the source of our modern word "hurricane",
was seen not as a force of destruction
but, ultimately, as a force of creation.
Another life-changing Mayan deity was "Ixchel"
a protective goddess of birth and fertility,
medicine and healing.
Today, a short boat ride from Cancun
still reveals a beach island
of worship and sanctuary
called Isla Mujeres,
for those who once prayed to this Earth Mother.
LOPEZ: The Mayans dedicated this island
to the god of the fertility,
who is the Ixchel God.
NARRATOR: Filled with images of the goddess,
Isla Mujeres is Spanish for "Island of the Women".
On the beaches of this feminine refuge
another species plays out a nightly,
ancient birthing ritual,
during the fertile months of summer.
The female green sea turtle
has been swimming to the Island of the Women
for thousands of years.
WORM: It's interesting that turtles
much like marine mammals and sea birds
they live in the open ocean
but they come to shore, and come onto the beach,
come onto land, to breed.
They're not that far away
from their evolutionary history,
they still have to use the land for breeding
and for the early part of their life cycle.
NARRATOR: Every May to September,
these gentle giants seek the sands here,
in order to lay their eggs.
This little beach is called Playa Angar,
and, in the dark of night,
green sea turtles transform it
into cradles for their nesting.
This behavior is difficult to film,
as artificial light can be a deterrent
for the mature animals,
making them less likely to nest
on a particular beach,
and these beach habitats are precious,
as the green turtle, like most sea turtles,
is an endangered species.
It's because the turtles and their eggs are so endangered
that these human conservationists are on hand.
Buried turtle eggs are vulnerable
to predators, off-roading vehicles,
high tropical storms and more.
Collecting eggs, in order to protect them
during their delicate incubation period,
is part of the mission of "Tortugranja" volunteers
like these ones.
With the permission of this government-sponsored group,
highly sensitive cameras capture the nesting turtles
in the softest possible light.
A mature green sea turtle
can be the circumference of a small tabletop
but weigh as much as an upright piano.
Most frequently,
her nesting will happen at night,
when it's cooler and quieter for the animal.
Once she's hauled herself up the beach,
beyond the reach of high tide,
the turtle digs a body pit.
Using all four flippers,
she excavates a huge volume of sand
an exhausting process
that can take almost half an hour.
Cradled in her body pit,
the green sea turtle now begins to dig
an even deeper hole for her egg chamber,
deep enough to ensure her eggs
won't be washed away by the rising tide.
She does this using only her back flippers.
The green turtle raises her back flippers
and begins a series of contractions.
With every contraction,
she lays multiple eggs into the sand.
The people who assist in this process
are like midwives
in keeping with the tradition of the Mayan goddess,
for whom the island was named.
Though it might seem like this turtle
is weeping tears during her birthing process
she's actually taking the opportunity
to secrete excess salts,
accumulated from her time swimming in the ocean.
By the time she's finished,
she will have laid between 100 and 150 eggs.
A collection of eggs like this is known as a clutch.
These volunteers collect the eggs
for the turtle's benefit
to protect the next generation of the animal
from possible early harm.
The volunteers will take these eggs back
to the "Tortugranja", a turtle sanctuary.
There, they'll bury the eggs all over again,
for a number of good reasons.
A buried clutch allows the egg embryos
to remain at optimal temperatures.
Studies indicate that warmer nests
tend to produce female hatchlings,
while colder nests tend to produce males.
Burying the clutch also allows the eggs to remain moist,
rather than drying out, exposed to the elements.
Each egg is close to the size of a ping pong ball
and lacks a hard shell.
Their spongy nature allows them to drop into the nest
without cracking.
Finally, burying the eggs helps protect them
from hungry predators,
ranging from crabs to raccoons.
A turtle's egg is a delicacy for such predators,
and for humans too.
Mayans of the Yucatan ate turtle eggs,
as well as their meat, for thousands of years.
Beyond any dietary value,
turtle eggs have been long eaten for mythical reasons
Even in the 21st century,
despite no scientific evidence,
myths persist that eating a turtle's egg
is a powerful aphrodisiac,
and a boost for male fertility.
But for the turtles that come to the beaches
at Isla Mujeres,
the humans who greet them here aren't predators
but caregivers.
NARRATOR: Mother green sea turtles
perform their birthing feats
more than once in a season.
NARRATOR: In an average season,
the Tortugranja volunteers might assist
over a thousand nesting sea turtles.
With an estimate of 100 eggs, each,
over the full nesting season,
this can potentially be 100,000 new offspring.
NARRATOR: Tortugranja volunteers collect the clutches of eggs
into simple, recyclable carry-alls
giving whole new meaning to a "clutch purse".
Midnight midwifery complete for the evening,
these volunteers prepare to return to
the Tortugranja turtle sanctuary.
Mother green sea turtles
do not raise their young.
Having laid her eggs, her work here is finished.
This beach is a primal, special place for her.
It's likely, in fact,
that this is the exact same beach
from which she was hatched,
some 20 to 50 years ago.
Now, in her sexual maturity,
she's been drawn back to the location
pinpointing it from potentially
an ocean away.
WORM: What is most mysterious to us
is that these turtles may come out of an egg,
crawl into the ocean
and disappear for 20 years,
swim right across the Atlantic,
and then come back in a huge circle
of thousands of kilometers,
and then go back to the very same beach
where they hatched
and where they spent minutes of their life,
go exactly back to the same beach
to lay their eggs.
And it's a mystery how they can find their way
from across the world, literally speaking,
to that one place that they call home.
NARRATOR: There's growing research lending credibility
to the notion that sea turtles
have something of a compass in their brains,
letting them detect Earth's magnetic field.
Should fate, or ancient Mayan goddesses, be kind,
this green sea turtle's hatchlings
will also carry Playa Angar beach
as an internal lodestone.
A lodestone that will never leave them
for all of the 80 years
a lucky sea turtle might live its life.
The pregnant sands of the Island of the Women
are also nesting grounds for another reptile,
the northeastern spinytail iguana.
It lays its eggs in the beach,
and basks on warm rocks,
frigatebirds wheeling in the skies above.
There are many subspecies of spinytail iguana.
The generic name for them all is Ctenausaura,
which comes from the Greek words
meaning comb and lizard.
And the spines running down their backs
certainly do look like bristles of a grooming comb.
This particular northeastern spinytail
seems caught in the middle of a grooming mishap.
Its chin resembling a man's after a shaving cut,
with a piece of blotting tissue hanging off the wound.
But it's actually just in the process of shedding skin.
It's a frequent and healthy,
albeit patchy, occurrence
as the animal continues to grow.
The spinytail iguana is the world's fastest lizard.
In short bursts,
it can run at speeds over 18 miles per hour.
The species ranges from Mexico's east coast,
found in places like tiny Isla Mujeres
as well as high-traffic, touristy Cancun.
This head bobbing is a territorial display.
The animal is defending its space against intruders,
like this great-tailed grackle.
The collective term for a flock of noisy grackles
is an "annoyance".
And this solitary bird
certainly seems to be annoying the spinytail.
Or maybe the iguana is simply hungry.
It's primarily a herbivore,
but it's also an opportunistic eater,
and won't pass up meat when given the chance.
As the crab emptied from this shell might attest.
Mexico's natural history plays out everywhere,
even in the middle of a man-made beach.
The beach here at Cancun is big business.
This epic stretch of white sand
first attracted a resort area in the 1970s.
Hotels were built to straddle the dunes
of this barrier island.
But as wind and waves continually blasted this shore,
the sands scoured away,
and threatened the postcard-perfect views.
To compensate, more than $70 million US dollars
have been spent, dredging nearby sandbars
to sustain this unsustainable situation.
With the volume of sand imported here to date,
you could build almost eight sandcastles
of the Empire State Building to scale.
But real wildlife still occupies this artificial shoreline,
It doesn't ruffle the brown pelican's feathers,
being so close to humankind.
The brown pelican appears ungainly,
as it waddles along the beach.
But it's another story when the pelican takes flight
to forage for food.
It dive-bombs between bathers
filling its bill
and finding the shallows are generous with fish.
The brown pelican lets the water drain from its throat pouch,
then swallows down its shuddering treat.
Some tourists consider the pelican population
to be a nuisance.
Like seagulls, they're birds that congregate
around human food scraps,
and can leave a lot of droppings on the beach.
But far more damaging to the Mexican beach experience
might be this real-life sea monster
beneath the birds' feet.
Piles and piles, of sargassum seaweed.
In recent years, this thick, red-brown seaweed
has been clogging the boundary between beach and sea,
in record-setting amounts.
Because it reproduces asexually,
some consider it to be one big creature
the largest organism in the world.
Putrefying in the heat,
this monster seaweed can make your eyes water,
with a smell like rotten eggs.
Lines of sargassum trace the Mexican coast.
For the hotel industry,
these are lines of battle
because this means war.
WORM: When you live on a pristine white beach
and you've never seen these species come to the shoreline
before in large masses, and they, they, they reek
and they they make the beach largely unusable,
it's an economic factor,
it's clearly something that would bother people.
If this had been an annual occurrence all along,
there would be no hotel in the first place.
NARRATOR: Hoteliers spend staggering amounts of money,
increasingly each year,
to rid their beachfronts of sargassum,
or, as it's also negatively labeled, gulfweed.
Newspapers run dramatic headlines like,
"Sargassum Seaweed Terrorizes Beaches in the Caribbean".
But in its natural habitat,
the seaweed plays a vital role
in the ecology of Mexico's coastal waters.
NARRATOR: Each individual strand of sargassum
can grow almost the length of a school bus.
Where Mother Nature weaves these strands together,
the floating mats are incredibly large,
several football fields long.
In one particular area of the Atlantic Ocean,
these great mats can bump into other great mats,
almost without interruption.
This is the Sargasso Sea.
WORM: It's actually a very special place,
and it's on the list of places to be protected,
because it's so unique in terms of
the seaweed floating around,
but also the fish and invertebrates
and birds and mammals and all kinds of life forms
associated with that seaweed.
It's a really important place.
It has been called, quite poetically, I think,
the floating rainforest of the sea.
NARRATOR: The Sargasso Sea
is actually named after the seaweed,
because it's got so much sargassum floating around.
Within this huge body of water,
islands of the vegetation
make for a constant, patchy sight.
WORM: The Sargasso Sea is a vast area of open ocean
about two million square miles,
or three million square kilometers, in extent.
So it's a large body of water,
and it's special because it's fairly enclosed, in that
there's a current that goes around.
NARRATOR: That system of currents
is known as the North Atlantic Gyre.
Surrounding the Sargasso Sea,
this gyre is made up of
the North Atlantic Current on the north,
the Canary Current on the east,
the Atlantic North Equatorial Current on the south
and, finally, the Gulf Stream on the west.
Bound inside this gyre,
the Sargasso is the only sea in the world
that doesn't touch land.
The seaweed mats within the Sargasso
mostly churn in place,
as if agitated in a giant washing machine.
Rather than some monstrous thing,
it's a golden floating jungle,
ripe in biomass.
WORM: The Sargassum fields are important nursery grounds
for a number of species, particularly
fish species such as mahi mahi, for example,
or dolphin fish, and sea turtles,
most definitely green turtles,
also loggerhead sea turtles
use it as important juvenile grounds
to grow up. Like a kindergarten of the sea,
if you will, but a floating kindergarten,
which is kind of neat.
NARRATOR: From a kindergarten of the sea
to a kindergarten on land,
this Tortugranja, or turtle sanctuary,
back at Isla Mujeres
is on the brink of its brand new hatching event.
Every 45 to 60 days,
in rolling succession on the calendar,
turtle eggs complete their incubations here,
cared for by conservation officers and volunteers.
Like the shift in perception
that needs to happen toward sargassum,
this is a culture shift in our relationship
with a needlessly hunted animal.
NARRATOR: Tortugranja is an incubator
for the unborn,
a kindergarten for the newly hatched,
and a hospital for the injured or infirm.
In this way, it is, again, a temple of sorts
on an island once filled with temples
to the protective goddess of birthing and healing.
Every one of these handwritten signs
is a sign of rebirth
for a species whose population numbers are critically dwindled.
NARRATOR: Clutches of eggs from Playa Angar beach
become buried treasures once they arrive here,
each carefully itemized and accounted for.
NARRATOR: When a clutch's
predicted date of hatching approaches,
they return the eggs to their beach of origin.
But sometimes these hatchlings
can arrive a little bit ahead of schedule.
NARRATOR: These hatchlings are only kept here
if they're born in the morning.
In part, this is because their instincts
are to race toward the brightest horizon
and, by night, the moon will better draw them
toward the safety of the sea.
NARRATOR: These green "preemies" flap around their pool,
learning to swim for the very first time.
From the moment of birth,
green turtles have four lateral plates
on the outer sides of their shells.
This helps to distinguish them from loggerhead turtles,
which have five plates.
This upper shell is also known as a dorsal carapace.
Tortugranja volunteers watch over the hatchlings,
like nursemaids, while trying to impart
some wonder and respect for the turtles
into the next generation.
Children watching children.
NARRATOR: When those baby turtles are released,
they'll instinctively race toward the ocean,
and toward those great, floating sargassum mats.
WORM: The green sea turtles, when they're smaller,
when they're growing up, they're most likely feeding
primarily on small organisms, like small shrimps,
and other crustaceans,
and other plankton organisms, possibly,
that are also found among the sargassum.
So essentially they're meat eaters,
whereas later in life they turn into grazers.
NARRATOR: For these turtles, and other creatures,
the floating sargassum is a place of shelter,
and a place of sustenance.
Warming waters and lesser winds
are the reasons many scientists believe
these increasing piles are coming to shore.
But scientists still view this sargassum
as a perfectly natural event.
In fact, a positive event.
WORM: When you go to the shore
and you dig into a pile of seaweed
that has been there for some weeks,
you'll see a huge number of shrimps
and other crustaceans
and organisms living in there.
Also, worms and other invertebrates,
that then are food for birds
and crabs and other organisms
that dig through there and fish them out.
So it's almost like a little
compost ecosystem developing on the beach.
NARRATOR: And, in places like Punta Sur Eco Beach Park,
sargassum is allowed to go all natural.
Punta Sur is an ecological reserve on Cozumel Island,
south of Isla Mujeres.
Away from the postcard demands of the hotel industry,
this sargassum fulfills its natural role unchecked.
Sargassum has also been long known
to possess healing properties.
WORM: Some societies have used seaweeds for a long time,
including sargassum,
as a potential herbal medicine
or an ingredient in herbal medicines.
NARRATOR: As far back as the 8th century,
Chinese medicine has used sargassum to treat fevers,
thyroid problems and skin conditions.
On the beach, sargassum also functions as a catchall,
and a buffer, reducing wind and wave erosion.
It shields the beach,
allowing the area to develop dunes
and then back-dunes
where renewable life can thrive.
In this way the brown algae not only
protects the island's wildlife,
but the physical structure of the island itself.
Nestled in the back dunes is a bunker-like building,
a Mayan ruin approximately a thousand years old.
As a popular myth would have it,
this structure functions as a sentinel
for coming hurricanes.
The building is known
as the Tumba del Caracol,
or the Shell Vault.
In its design,
it's said to resemble a conch shell.
The persistent myth here is that when
the great god Huracan would raise a gale,
it would blow through this chamber
like blowing on a conch.
The vault then would produce
a high, whistling sound of warning,
so those nearby might protect themselves.
NARRATOR: Countering the romantic version
is the reality.
When Hurricane Wilma ripped through Cozumel,
this little temple did nothing to protect the region.
But an all-natural system
along these Cozumel coasts, did.
NARRATOR: Hurricane Wilma is among
the fiercest tropical cyclones
ever recorded in the Atlantic Basin.
But the red mangrove forests shielding Cozumel
took the brunt of the storm.
Without this natural savior
the damage to the island
would have been profoundly worse.
Red mangrove trees live at the juncture of land and sea,
and are adapted to tough, intertidal conditions.
Their great, gnarly roots
prop them above the high water line
so much so, that they're called "stilt roots".
Where these knotty roots systems
strong-anchor into the mud,
they also fortify the entire coastline.
They protect from erosion,
and hold onto new sediments
even when the strongest tides roll out.
During a hurricane event,
these rugged mangroves are critical.
They function like natural windbreakers,
reducing gale speeds,
while also diminishing the impact of crashing waves.
Some studies suggest mangroves can absorb
an astounding 90% of a wave's energy
during a tropical cyclone.
But standing on the front lines
can take its toll,
making reforestation efforts like this, necessary.
But in a very real way,
these mangroves help to protect the entire island.
During hurricanes, it's estimated that
for every mangrove patch the size of a football field,
approximately $100,000 US in property damage
is stopped in its tracks.
But damaged mangrove forests grow back very slowly.
So where they once saved the people,
now the people must save them.
NARRATOR: But with every successfully germinated seed,
the area comes another step
toward being fruitful for the future.
NARRATOR: Healthy mangrove forests,
like sargassum fields,
are ripe nurseries for a wealth of young species.
Among these mangrove roots
you might see blue crab, snook,
snappers and more.
This reddish egret makes its home
just beyond the red mangroves
in a habitat made safe by the trees' protective belt.
The egret is a kind of heron,
stalking its prey in a long-limbed rush.
In order to reduce glare off the water,
this bird shrugs its wings out wide
making it known as a "canopy hunter".
With a conservation status of "threatened,"
the American crocodile also uses
the mangrove forests as a place of refuge.
And when the time comes,
like its distant reptilian cousin the sea turtle,
the crocodile will lay its eggs
in the cradling, soft earth of the nearby beach.
NARRATOR: One of those nearby beaches,
still within Cozumel's Punta Sur,
is about to become a twilight staging area
for the release of hatchling turtles.
Like their colleagues from Isla Mujeres,
the Turtle Salvation Program here
is made up of designated biologists and volunteers.
They work to limit human activity
on Cozumel's eastern-sided beaches,
during the nesting and hatching season.
NARRATOR: The Turtle Salvation Program
identifies nested clutches,
in order to protect eggs from their natural predators.
NARRATOR: The program also tags mature females,
in order to collect scientific data
regarding their feeding habits,
migration patterns and more.
NARRATOR: And, when the day finally arrives,
these volunteers preside over the release
of the next generation of hatchlings.
This clutch, freed from their spongy eggshells,
still seem to be "clutching" to one another
a groggy ball of little lives.
Just before twilight,
more and more turtles bloom from the sands,
rousing themselves and becoming more active.
NARRATOR: Baby turtles instinctively know
to aim themselves towards the setting sun or the moon,
as it shines across the water.
For those first critical minutes, however,
if a turtle scrambles inland,
fooled by over-lit human hotels, or street lamps,
then that turtle risks never making it to the ocean at all.
Hatchlings can have their lives cut short
during their very first hour, by crocodiles,
crabs, car wheels and more.
NARRATOR: Happily, more and more Mexican beach developers
are becoming aware of their protective responsibility,
New government regulations, as of 2013,
call for changing or eliminating
any long-term light sources
that disrupt the nesting beaches.
Racing for the ocean's protective cover,
these hatchlings still have their work cut out for them.
Not even an hour old,
and already learning how to "hang ten".
Having literally thrown themselves
into the deep end,
these baby turtles now instinctively strive
for a place of safety in wide open waters
heading for those sargassum nurseries
fringing the Mexican coast.
WORM: Sea turtles have really
adapted to life in the Sargassum fields,
particularly at the early life stages.
So the smaller turtles, they're basically
like popcorn swimming in the ocean.
Everybody can gobble them up.
They're slow, they're tasty
and they need to find a safe place to hide,
and the sargassum provides that for them.
NARRATOR: The stark truth is that only 1%
of these hatchlings will ever survive
long enough to reach sexual maturity.
Under the sand, not every clutch of eggs will hatch.
Neither will every egg within a clutch.
And not every baby hatchling
will make it to the edge of the beach.
But Mother Nature has a way
of turning even negatives into positives,
These natural casualties will, in fact,
renew the beach itself,
Beach sand, on its own, is basically
too fine to hold onto rich nutrients.
But through shrugged-off eggshells
and unsuccessful hatchlings,
turtles help replenish their place of birth.
Bestowing primal nutrients back into the sand
causes dune vegetation to flourish.
Better dune vegetation causes root systems to flourish,
anchoring the beach against bigger forces of erosion,
just as the sargassum
and the red mangrove forests do.
This allows the entire ecosystem of plants and animals
to grow more fertile.
A rebirth.
Two decades from now,
the living beach will be here
to welcome back some of these very same hatchlings,
grown to maturity,
heavy now with their own eggs.
Mothers,
in the garden of the Earth Goddess, Ixchel.
WORM: Into the 21st century
I think we really have to step up efforts
to maintain that ability of the living beach to,
not just be alive, but resilient to
some of those challenges that are coming,
like climate change and increased pollution
and increased populations of people
who want to live near the coast.
CORTEZ: Every time when I take people
around this lagoon, I tell them that
we live on an island,
but it's not called Cozumel.
We live on an island which is called planet Earth.
And then if we do something bad in one part,
it will affect us.
That's why here we have to do
our best to protect these areas.
NARRATOR: Nursing the turtle population back to health
speaks to our care-taking for all Mother Earth,
so that she may continue to take care of us.
There is another myth, in Mayan folklore.
In it, the origins of these gentle reptiles
and our own origins remain forever intertwined,
The story goes, long before human beings,
and long before the God Huracán
blew the beaches and the lands into being
there was only the endless ocean.
And the entire world that contained it,
that was carried across the heavens,
borne upon the back of a turtle.
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