Those pictures have been going around for a while now.
Kind of like culling elephants, so cute but starving due to over population, in South Africa. Or some wild animals here in the USA, Hunting licenses and permits are sometimes modified or issued to control animal populations. Here in Louisiana the alligator farms get their stock eggs by raiding wild nests, the number of permits issued is determined by Wild Life and Fisheries and to control overpopulation
Steve W
From Hoax-Slayer Outline
"Email that call for a stop to a supposed "attack against nature" on the beaches of Costa Rica claims that a series of attached photographs depict crowds of people digging up and stealing turtle eggs that they will later sell.
Brief Analysis
The photographs are genuine, but they do not depict the illegal poaching of turtle eggs. In fact, the egg harvest shown in the photographs is a perfectly legal and strictly controlled event that is managed by the Costa Rican government and been in operation since the 1980's. Far from being an "attack against nature", the egg harvest is an integral part of a long term conservation program that has resulted in a significant increase in the successful hatchings of Olive Ridley Turtles
Or this from another:
" As usual, the truth isnt quite as black and white as that. Indigenous peoples in many places have been harvesting turtle eggs for years & years, and its a cultural and economic way of life for them. These are most likely pictures of the legal harvest allowed at Ostional Wildlife Refuge in Costa Rica.
Although the locals harvest about 3 million eggs a year, about 27 million are left in place to hatch.
Locals are only allowed to collect during the first 36 hours of a nesting arribada, and most of those nests would have been destroyed anyway by subsequent females digging nests on the same beach. (Because all species of ridley turtles nest in huge groups over a period of just a few days, this destruction by other nesting females is considered to be the biggest threat to olive ridley populations, topping all other human-induced forms of mortality. 70-80% of all ridley nests laid are destroyed by subsequent nesting females.).
or you can check out SNOPES for complete details
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/seaturtles.asp