PACUARE
We closed the season at the end of September with the usual party for all our friends and helpers in the neighbourhood. Arturo performed his usual miracle of providing food, drink and music for around 100 people who danced into the small hours on a fine night.
The previous day we held the presentation of results of the turtle nesting season, given by Alvaro Manzano for Pacuare and by Cristina who came over from Bocas to give her report on the Panamanian beaches. The figures were disappointing.
At Pacuare we counted only 737 Leatherback nests, compared with 900 last year and the number of ‘new recruits’ was also lower than hoped for. The picture was similar in Panama.
Green turtle nests at Pacuare were the lowest ever, with only 20 nests counted, but we continued patrolling till the end of September. An unprotected beach is an invitation to the poachers who value a Green turtle for its meat at up to 120 US Dollars, and will kill them on the beaches or spear them at sea.
The biologists have no explanation for the decline in the nesting numbers which are notoriously unpredictable and uneven from year to year. It is the same with the Green turtles nesting to the north of us at Tortuguero where last year they came in record-breaking tens of thousands. This year saw a dramatic decline.
We shall continue what we are doing which is keeping poaching below 1% and ensuring that as many hatchlings as possible reach the sea. Next year will be different and we hope it will be better.
We had an excellent leading team this year, with Alvaro (Spanish) and Isobel (US) the biologists at the South and North station, and Jorge (Mexican) the logistics coordinator who is a professional chef when at home in Oaxaca and tactfully made marked improvements to the food at Pacuare. We are delighted that all three have accepted to return next year.
The team of Field Assistants was also specially good and we are only sorry that most of them have commitments to continue their academic studies in 2012. Apart from beach patrolling almost every night, they kept busy with the individual projects which they are required to do.
We had a study on crocodiles and caimans (we have several in the lagoon), others on beach vegetation, camera-trapping and more on medicinal plants.
The Agami herons were monitored discreetly in their nesting site on the tiny island in the inner lagoon. A deeper study needs a professional ornithologist as they are so precious and so rare that we dare not do anything that might disturb them.
Others did practical work: We regularly helped at the Pacuare school where there are 7 pupils between 7 and 11 and one teacher to attend to them all. We brought a laptop which we have lent to the school.
There was successful tutoring of the two youngest daughters of Francisco who works for us and lives nearby on the canal. He lives 8 kms from the Pacuare school and there is no public transport on the canal so the girls don’t go to school. Our Spanish Assistant, Inma, spent many hours with them teaching them to read and write.
The recycling and compost-making projects, started in March this year, were carried forward by other Assistants. All organic rubbish now goes for compost (Earth University gave us EMF - Efficient Micro organisms – to help with this), glass bottles form the borders for flower beds, and the plastic, after being washed, is collected once a week from a point on the canal by a recycling company. In our nearest small towns, all rubbish is still dumped in one big pile.
The vegetable growing project was less successful as the iguanas ate everything we planted - runner-beans, tomatoes, lettuces, herbs and more.
We have been encouraging local people to try their skills at handicrafts and there are now three ladies and a man who make necklaces, bracelets, rings, etc. which we sell for them at the little shop in the reserve.
More building work has started. In the North Station, Danilo is enlarging and improving the kitchen/eating area, and in the South the old house next to the Casa Grande has been demolished and will be replaced.
Visitor numbers increased considerably this year. Ecology Project Int. brought 700 students from the US and Costa Rica and the total was over 1000 which included three big school groups from England in July. They saw the hatchlings and wrote enthusiastically of their visit.
Pacuare has so much of interest for young people and we welcome them any time between March and September.
We start next year with an experienced team to lead us forward and with every confidence that the Pacuare Nature Reserve will go on getting better and better, both for its wildlife and for its visitors.
PANAMA
Under Cristina’s supervision, the three beaches of Soropta, Sixaola and Playa Larga were again protected and monitored during the Leatherback season from March to mid-July.
Sixaola is a remote 7-kms beach, separated from Costa Rica by a river, and has only a handful of people living in the area. We are fortunate in having Huascar, from the nearby town of Changuinola, to lead a team of six local people to patrol during the nesting season. They counted 293 nests this year, compared to 482 last season, another big drop in numbers. Poachers from across the river took 38 nests, or 13%, which is unacceptably high but without help from the authorities it is impossible to defend the beach against gangs of poachers arriving by boat from across the border.
Soropta is also 7 kms long and even more remote which is why we had to establish a base there for the project ten years ago, with accommodation for a biologist and local support staff. As often mentioned before, ten years ago Soropta was the worst of the killing beaches, with the remains of slaughtered turtles a common sight. It is a difficult beach to patrol, especially since the western half of the beach was washed away by the floods in 2009. To keep patrolling a stretch of 7 kms, we have had to take in more beach to the east, which means that our base is now at one end of the beach we protect, instead of being in the middle…Margaret Roa, from Colombia, was biologist in charge this year and did a wonderful job on this testing assignment. The nesting count at 456 was down on last year but Soropta remains a very busy and important Leatherback beach. Nests lost to poachers numbered 22, or 5%.
On the island of Bastimentos where we patrol and monitor the small Playa Larga beach (its name is a contradiction), Leatherback nesting numbers were dramatically lower, from an average of around 150 to only 59. On the other hand, the nests of the rare Hawksbill, hunted for its valuable shell, soared to 52, an all-time high for the last ten years. None were taken by poachers.
No turtles were killed on any of the beaches we patrol but one was slaughtered on Soropta outside out patrolling area, a timely reminder that though we seem to have supressed the killing, there are still poachers in Panama who will kill the Leatherback for its meat. We cannot relax or lower our guard.
Ana Herrera, a young Colombian biologist, was in charge of this little project. She is another of the excellent young marine biologists from that country who are not given a visa into Costa Rica. They can come and do temporary work in Panama, but not allowed into Costa Rica.
The funding of the Panama projects is a serious problem. Sources of funding and the steady trickle of paying volunteers have dried up. On top of this, the old house at Soropta, which we renovated completely ten years ago, is now beyond repair. A smaller replacement must be built very soon and we appeal to everyone reading this to make a donation to help this good cause. The Soropta project must continue. In the ten years that it has been in operation, it has saved the lives of hundreds of these critically endangered turtles. We have had a warning that some poachers are ready with their machetes. We must not ignore this.
Donations can be made on this website.