APRIL 2012
PACUARE RESERVE
Our leatherback season started on March 1st and the turtles have been coming in record numbers. In mid March we had 21 nests in one night and the total number for the month was 234. Both figures are records. Does this mean we are heading for a best ever season? Not necessarily. It could be that the nesting-season is starting early, as it did last year, with April and May proving somewhat disappointing after a very good March. By contrast, in 2009, we had a record 1200 nests in the whole season, but only 80 nests in March. So we shall have to wait and see. March figures have proved an unreliable guide to the rest of the season.
Unexpected arrivals during the month were two nesting green turtles, normally not seen until June/July.
With so many turtles, our team has been kept very busy gathering data from each nesting turtle. Our Field Assistants came around February 20th to receive training from our biologists Alvaro Manzano and Isabel Peterson, both experienced from previous seasons at Pacuare. We welcomed back Assistants Rocio, Rachelle, Pablo and Haji. Newcomers were Elisa (Italy) Susana (El Salvador) Laura (Spain) and Alex (Costa Rica). The all-important post of Coordinador Logistico was filled by Jessie James from England (fluent English/Spanish) who came at the very last moment to fill an unexpected cancellation.
The next Latest News would normally be posted at the end of the turtle season in early October but this year we will post the number of nests month by month until the end of July.
This season the Field Assistants will not be asked to do their own research projects. They have too little time. Instead, they will concentrate either on projects within the reserve such as recycling, compost and growing vegetables, and on local projects such as environmental education at the Pacuare school or helping with the local primary school children whom we bring to the reserve.
Visitors in March included a working group of students from Earth University. They came from all countries in Latin America and came to us to do a day’s project. One half of the group planted little trees around our anti-flood barrier and the other half built a raised flower bed made of bamboo.
We have made a close connection in Bataan with a group of ladies who are community leaders in many different activities. They are as enthusiastic about the connection as we are. So far they are producing interesting “artesanias” for our shop, they are selling us eggs and vegetables so we can buy less from the local supermarkets, and they are taking our separated rubbish for recycling. They are keen to be involved in a local campaign to halt the taking and eating of turtle eggs.
Another new connection we have made is with Banadosmil, the owner of the local banana plantation, and we have come to be more sympathetic to the way they operate. We hate their little yellow planes spreading chemicals over their plantations and the blue plastic bags, chemically impregnated, that enclose every big bunch of bananas. These practices are made necessary by the strict requirements of the US and European supermarkets whose perfect spotless yellow bananas can only be grown with the use of chemicals. Ultimately, it is the consumer who controls the way bananas are grown. Banadosmil has placed half their land under natural regeneration. They have supported us in bringing local children to the reserve and this program is expanding.
The rare Agami herons have returned to form a nesting colony in the same place in the centre of the reserve. They are so easily disturbed that this year we shall not make any census or study of them. We hope that Jim Kushlan, a world expert on Herons, will visit us next year.
As always, the off-season October-February has been busy with maintenance and new construction. At the South Station we finally replaced what became known as Guillermo’s house and Danilo and his brothers built a new one on the same site. At the North they greatly enlarged the dining room, built a new w.c. and shower block, so that the North and South stations can now receive groups of equal size.
PANAMA
A slow start to the season. At Sixaola Beach, Huascar Miller and his small team of local people are patrolling the 7 kms beach and trying to protect it from the Costa Rican poachers who come across the river which forms the border between the two countries. In March12 nests were poached out of 67.
At Soropta, Margarita Roa from Colombia is again the biologist running this difficult project. 92 nests were counted in March with 2 poached. This is the beach which was largely washed away in the floods of 2009, so that the night patrols now extend 7kms in one direction from the base, making a long round trip over a beach strewn with rubbish and timber.
Playa Larga , a lovely isolated golden beach on Bastimentos Island, is better known for Hawksbill turtles, but our little project there operates during the Leatherback season. Karol, our Costa Rican Field Assistant of many years standing, is running the beach protection with one assistant and one or two volunteers. She reports 30 nests in March.
Altogether, 189 Leatherback nests on the three beaches and 14 lost to poachers. Without help from the authorities it is not possible to stop the Costa Ricans crossing the river so we must expect that poaching will always be a problem on Sixaola beach. On the bright side, no turtles were killed on the beaches we patrol.