"It is probable that they have been born here for centuries and there is a theory that they come to give birth on the beach where they themselves were born," Javier Vasconcelos, the director of the Mexican Turtle Center, told Reuters at his beachside offices.

Conservation efforts begun by the Mexican government a decade ago are helping the turtle population prosper. In the coming week, La Escobilla is expected to swarm with turtles as the migrations of egg-bearing mothers hits a peak, with more than a thousand landing on the beach on any given night.

According to specialists, 840,000 of the large green-and-khaki reptiles have arrived since August to lay their eggs here. The turtles, whose shells are roughly the size of a large garbage can lid, could continue to come to La Escobilla through January.

Each turtle lays about 100 eggs in deep nests that can take as long as an hour to locate and dig.

The eggs take about one and a half months to hatch and produce turtles, which take about a decade to grow into adults that weigh as much as 77 pounds (35 kilograms) and measure up to 28 inches (70 cm) in length.

The mother turtles swim thousands of miles (kilometers) to arrive at La Escobilla, coming from as far away as Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Ecuador, according to satellite data provided by the Mexican Turtle Center.

PREDATORS, A CONSTANT RISK

Despite efforts by mother turtles to bury their eggs deep in the sand and away from the grasps of nature's hungry predators, only one in a hundred babies lives to see adulthood.

Crabs and beach fowl first search out the nests for easy nourishment and then hunt the little turtles as they emerge from their shells and make their way to the sea.

And even as they enter the Pacific, their natural element, the turtles must first face the crushing waves that relentlessly pound the surf and then the carnivorous fish that swim in the ocean's depths.

The Mexican Turtle Center, one of the largest centers for marine turtle protection on the continent, helps the babies dodge land-bound perils.

Unhatched eggs are moved to a guarded corral set near to where they were laid, on the beach at La Escobilla. Once the turtles are born, Turtle Center staff protect them from beach perils by giving them a lift to where the land meets the sea. But from there on they are on their own.

The most menacing of all threats to the turtles comes from the men who hunt the marine species mercilessly.

The turtles are treasured for their oils, which supposedly contain medicinal qualities, their skin and shells, used to produce luxury artifacts, and their meat, considered a culinary delicacy.

PROTECTED SPECIES

A decade ago, the Mexican government declared the turtles a protected species, but the new laws have not put off determined poachers who are drawn to the hunt by the high prices fetched by turtles and their eggs on the black market.

At La Escobilla, where 1.2 million turtles were born in 2000, the birthing corral is guarded by Navy soldiers who patrol the beach together with staff from the Turtle Center.

But even the tightest security cannot dissuade the most determined poachers.

"We (tonight) shot at some men who were searching for nests but they escaped," one military guard told Reuters as he made his midnight rounds at La Escobilla. "They had come to steal eggs."

"This species was severely hunted for many years, especially in the 1960s," said Vasconcelos. "Mexico made up a significant number of the registered catches."

Mexican legislation to protect the species came in 1990, in large part because so many of the turtles use Mexican beaches to lay their eggs.

Since 1996, the sale of turtles or turtle byproducts has been a federal crime, punishable by fines and imprisonment.