LATEST NEWS
February 2008
The 2008 leatherback season will soon be upon us and our team is ready.
During the last three months, interviews have been taking place in South and Central America and Europe to select the “coordinators” who will run the projects at Pacuare and Panama during the 2008 season. The interviews were the culmination of the many responses we received from our wide search on the internet and through the “turtle network”.
At the same time eight Research Assistants have been recruited for Pacuare out of the many more who applied.
Below is the list of those who are now making their way to Costa Rica and Panamá to take up their stations for the 2008 season.
We thank all those who wanted to join us and were disappointed not to have been chosen this time round.
Nombres de coordinadores y asistentes en Pacuare:
Coordinador General: Kerstin Kalchmayr, Surafrica
Biólogo encargado: Pablo Garcés, Ecuador
Biólogo asistente: David Melero, España
Asistentes de investigación:
Maja Celinscak: Croacia
Daniel González: España
Christine Parfitt: Australia
Jenniffer Hederman U.S.A.
Jessica Obie U.S.A.
Juan Manuel Carrillo España
Neil Davis Inglaterra
José Ruiz España
Panamà
Soropta:
Scott Handy: Inglaterra, Coordinador
Sarah Lucas: Inglaterra asistente
Playa Larga:
Mauricio: Panamà, Coordinador
Sixaola:
Huascar Miller (Panamá)
There is a good mix of nationalities here, though, sadly, no Costa Rican this time.
For the turtles, 2007 was a really good year. Let us work and hope for the same again or better in 2008.
(Please scroll down to read about last year's season in Panama)
The 2007 Season - a short summary of progress so far
by John Denham
The 2007 Leatherback season has just ended and we await final nesting figures, but it is clear that this has been a very good year. We are hesitant to call it a 'landmark' season but it could signal the turnaround that we and our supporters have been hoping and aiming for.
For the first time ever, the 20 kilometres of Panamanian beach from the Costa Rican border have been effectively patrolled and protected. Broad rivers cut these 20 kms into three separate beaches of roughly equal length - Sixaola beach, San San beach and Soropta. All three were scenes of cruel slaughter where every year 25-30 turtles were killed on each beach with machetes, their eggs extracted and their flippers cut off to be sold for human consumption. Soropta was the worst of the killing beaches and it was there we established our first project in 2002, with a biologist, volunteers and local guards who patrolled each night, measured and tagged the hundreds of turtles that came up to lay. From then on, no turtles were killed on Soropta but the killing continued on the other two beaches. In 2006 we set up a community-based project on Sixaola beach and these few local men, under a trained leader, turned a killing beach into a turtle haven with 350 nests protected and no turtles killed. That left only San San where the killing continued, but this year another community project was set up, in partnership with Amvecona, and it has been enthusiasically supported locally. Many turtles have nested safely on this beach and just one has been killed - a warning that we are nearly there but not yet safe.
Over 900 nests were counted and protected on these three beaches. On the nearby island of Bastimentos we run another project to protect Playa Larga where some 150 Leatherbacks nest, as well as an important number of rare Hawksbill turtles.
In all, therefore, over 1000 nests are now being laid and protected in Panama, and for the time being at least, the killing has been stopped.
We must ensure that it never starts again.
Meantime at our Pacuare reserve in Costa Rica, we counted over 900 nests during the season, the highest number since 2001. It has been a most encouraging year.
Our warmest thanks to all who have contributed with their hard work to these excellent results - Biologists, Coordinators, Research Assistants, Guards, volunteers and many school groups.
Please phone +44 (0) 20 72292093 if you would like to know more about how you can support this project.
